


Steven Universe: Plus Ultra!

by Neobahamut86



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27993510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neobahamut86/pseuds/Neobahamut86
Summary: Stranded in a weird world, far away from everyone they know, Steven and Connie must find the scattered crystal gems and find their way back home, Can they succed while having to deal with High School as one of their obstacles? and not any High school, but a Hero high school at that?
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe
Comments: 32
Kudos: 101





	1. They Came in a Beam of Light

Inspector Tsukachi made his way to the police station. It was as if every crazy thing just happened in the span of a few days. Just a little while ago a new group of villains calling themselves "The League of Villains" had come with the plan to Kill the symbol of Peace, ever since then he kept his eyes focused on any unusual case, anything that could be related to that mysterious organization, and their beast the Noumu.  
  
He was focused, the mysterious League of villains seemed to have a connection with one of the most dangerous villains ever recorded, and with such importance he kept his ear to the ground for anything unusual, and while he wasn't so sure about it, the urgency and secretiveness of the captain on this small Mustafu station, he decided to see this place in person, whatever they had seen was unusual enough to give him of all people, a direct call.  
  
"Greetings Inspector, I'm officer Terakado, the Captain is waiting for you." a f ~~e~~ male officer said as she fidgeted with something in her hands. Tsukachi simply nodded and went to receive the information.  
  
Going past the information lobby and the desks of the officers, Naomasa found himself office of Captain Kondo, he was a firm stern man, his whitening hair and wrinkles did give some clues to his age, and the organization of his Desk made pretty evident that he was an efficient no-nonsense leader, especially on how he looked at the rest of the people sitting in the remaining seats of his office.  
  
Sitting in the left seat was the professional hero Mount Lady, sitting lazily as she tried to find a comfortable spot in the chair, while Terakado took her seat on the right. Tsukachi could see the young officer's hand shaking and hovering around something in her pocket, probably whatever she was holding in her hand when he got to the station.  
  
"Inspector Tsukachi"  
  
"Captain Kondo" Tsukachi bowed respectfully. The captain returned the gesture in turn and the inspector took his seat.  
  
"Great, we can start now" Mount Lady said as she stretched, ignoring the stern look she was getting from the captain.  
  
"Ehem, Inspector, I called you to my station because I'd like the following case handled quietly, I do know that you work very closely with the number one hero" the monitor in the back lit up, playing scenes of last couple night news. "The shooting star, they called it as some saw a beam of white light streak through the sky and made impact in the middle of the park" the captain summarized what the archived news broadcast had stated. "the culprits have been captured, however their identity identity had been kept secret"  
  
"ahumm" Mount Lady stood up "I was there when it happened".  
  
"Huh?" Tsukachi  
  
"Mount Lady was the first hero to respond and was technically one of the few witnesses of the landing event." the captain pointed to the Heroine in the office. "She didn't need to BE here, but she insisted."  
  
"Hey, I don't normally find interesting cases, I wanna see what happens with this one" Mt. Lady winked playfully at the police officers, "And besides I wanted to give my account of the facts, in person."  
  
"You may go on Mt. Lady" said the captain. The heroine sat comfortably on the chair and proceeded to spin the tale of what happened a few days ago:  
  
_I was at the park in Mustafu, resting a bit after a long day of patrolling..._  
  
"Didn't it happen early afternoon?"  
  
_Ehem, as I was taking a short break in the early afternoon, before resuming my patrol, today was a slow day, it was kind of like if after something as big as the USJ incident, crime took a small holiday or something..._  
  
"Mt. Lady please" the captain interrupted again  
  
_Oh well, I was just sitting in a bench by myself when ***BOOOM*** a deafening explosion filled the sky, a brief flash of light appeared above the horizon, and from it a beam of white light streaked through the sky in a zigzag pattern, yet going right towards me!_  
  
"We have several witnesses of the explosion and light beam," added officer Terakado.  
  
_Thinking this was some sort of villain attack, I activated my quirk growing Gigantic, ready to swat whatever was coming from the sky when ***FWOOOSH*** , whatever it was, it went right through me!_  
  
"A translocation? Teleportation quirk" Inquired Tsukachi, getting only a shrug from the Hero.  
  
_I wouldn't know, I didn't feel anything and no wound or bruises formed. As far as I can tell, the light went right through me as if I wasn't there at all, but immediately after that light made contact with the ground..._  
  
_***BOOOM***_  
  
_A new crater decorated the center of the park, along with our little culprits_.  
  
"Culprits?"  
  
"This is the part we kept from the press, in part to protect the identity of the responsibles of what appears to be an accident" the Captain answered Tsukachi's question as Mt. Lady finished her account.  
  
_In the middle of the crater, there were two young teenagers, 15 somethings I guess, the dark skinned girl was wearing what I believe was a martial arts uniform, and had a weird pink sword strapped to her back, while the boy, caucasian maybe?, wore a more normal attire, a pink jacket, jeans and black shirt with a yellow star in the chest, the kids seemed unconscious for a moment, but as I got closer the boy began to stir, and when I got closer he looked at me, and I heard him whisper:_  
  
_**"A giant Woman!"**_


	2. Suspect interviews

*Hours before Tsukachi's Arrival*  
  
This was their 5th flight around the world. Going over the atmosphere faster than any plane ever could, not bothered by silly things like air resistance or friction.  
  
Connie and Steven would love this view if it wasn't for the fact that every place they visited, every landmark that they spiraled around, was wrong.  
  
"No..." Connie pressed Steven's hand tightly "This is not how it's supposed..."  
  
There wasn't a Siberian sea within the confines of Russia, nor the gem battlefield in Norway.  
  
"But it doesn't make sense." Steven and Connie's Mind Projections circumnavigated the world again and again only letting their dread grow.  
  
"There's no galaxy warp, no gem landmarks, but we were in Japan! Right?" Connie lifted her hand in protest, without letting Steven's go.  
  
"No.. not only that" Steven and Connie's minds floated to every place their hearts knew. "It's similar but not the same, almost like... " Connie felt Steven's hold tighten "No Beach city, no Crystal Temple..." Steven turned his head to the cold space.  
  
"Wha?.." Connie knew what Steven was seeing, more specifically what he wasn't seeing. "No Homeworld!"  
  
"WHERE ARE WE!!" Steven yelled in frustration as his scream disappeared into nothingness.  
Steven and Connie woke up in the containment cell.  
  
"I don't know where we are" Steven wiped the sweat from his brow. Thanks to his greater experience using his powers, he was able to not only astrally project himself, but others as well, as long as they were in contact at all times.  
  
"It looks so much like home" Connie sat closer, "if it wasn't for the superheroes running around I could swear we were on our Earth."  
  
"We need to find the others, they have to be around somewhere."  
  
"I just hope they believe us. They weren't taking us seriously until they saw you had more than one power."  
  
"I won't stop this time" Steven's smile reassured Connie for a bit "We'll find the gems, and then go back home!"  
  
#  
Tsukauchi stroked his chin as Mount Lady finished her tale. The kids were disoriented and confused, yet they cooperated without a fight, "This looks like 2 teenagers taking a joyride with their quirk and getting caught in the act, I assume that you found something else while booking them."  
  
Captain Kondo nodded, and as if it was a sign ~~,~~ Officer Terakado quickly entered the conversation. "I- ah - I was was in charge of their interrogation" she stammered, " the boy's name is Steven Quartz Universe, while the girl is Connie Maheswaran"  
  
"Huh" Tsukauchi raised an eyebrow.  
  
"We..When they told us they were from America, I started taking their data, but it.. it didn't make sense." Terakado pulled papers from a folder "Beach city's Crystal temple?, Delmarva State? I thought that they were trying to play a bad joke on me, but after they insisted I decided to register what their quirks were and..."  
  
"I assume one of them had that Translocation quirk Right?"  
  
"Well, that's the thing, they said that beam of light was technology, they called it Warp-something?, bu- but that's not the weirdest part" she pulled a different paper out of the folder "when I first asked the question of what their quirks were, they looked at me as if they didn't know what I was talking about. I- I even used other words for quirk, but they only understood when I gave them a demonstration"  
  
"Hmm" Tsukachi tought about this case further, the most obvious answer could be that they were playing dumb to avoid getting into trouble, but at this point it didn't make much sense.  
  
"The girl then identified as quirkless, the boy however, listed at least 3 different quirks."  
  
"What?" Tsukachi's reaction was accompanied by a smirk of Mount Lady.  
  
"Creating hard light force fields and projections, shapeshifting and the ability to slow down his fall to the ground, he- he even demonstrated those so I know he wasn't lying, a..and got a bit surprised." Terakado lowered her face in embarrassment.  
  
"The kids noticed officer Terakado's reaction so they didn't push the topic further..." the captain added, "We think the kids may be part of something bigger, but we won't get anywhere until we can corroborate their stories" Kondo finally sat and continued. "we checked the addresses and phone numbers, nothing came out of it as expected."  
  
"I understand captain," the inspector noded with determination.  
  
"Excellent! Please come with me and I'll take you with them" the captain exited the office followed by the heroine, however, before exiting Tsukachi noticed officer Terakado staying behind. He noticed the woman looking at something in her hands, just like when he got to the station.  
"Oh, what is that?"  
  
"Um" she shyly showed him a stone, "I found it today on my way to the station" Terakado held the stone to the light, showing different colored crystals fused together into a single rock "It’s a cluster of gems, I like it-" the officer looked at Tsukachi "I should have finished the interrogation..."  
  
"Nonsense!"  
"Huh?"  
  
"Thanks to your report we may have found something bigger than what it was originally thought," Tsukauchi addressed the officer "I want you to accompany me during this interrogation. I'm sure that we'll get to the bottom of it in no time!"  
  
#  
Tsukauchi and Terakado entered the interrogation room. Usually designed for small time criminals, the room was completely bare save for a table, some chairs and of course the station's newest residents, Steven and Connie.  
  
Tsukachi sat in the closest chair to the table and took a look at the small suspects, the kids sat close together, as if they were supporting each other.  
  
Terakado on the other hand sat in the chair behind Tsukachi, she was both taking notes and keeping track of the evidence collected, just in case it was necessary.  
  
"You must be Steven, Correct?" The teenager nodded. "I'm inspector Tsukauchi, the captain told me what you two did Yesterday"  
  
"We're sorry" Steven answered "we were confused, we didn't mean to surprise the officer."  
  
"We tried to call the phones you gave us yesterday, they didn't work."  
  
"W..we know." Connie Answered the inspector's question.  
  
"You gave us fake numbers?"  
  
"No, No, It's not like that" Steven quickly corrected Tsukauchi. "We were trying to cooperate back then, we wanted you to call, to tell my family and Connie's that we were Okay, It's just that, now we know it's worse than we thought." Steven looked at Connie and nodded.  
  
"Inspector Tsukauchi, what we're about to tell you might sound a bit crazy but it's the whole truth."  
  
The inspector looked closely at both kids, his quirk that allowed him to perceive the lies hadn't triggered even once. Even when Connie admitted that the numbers wouldn't work, the familiar sensation of a lie didn't cross his mind. "I understand"  
  
"We don't know where we are" Steven said "This is not our world."  
  
"Eh?" Terakado's eyes widened.  
  
"EEEH?!" Tsukauchi put his hand on his forehead not only the sudden response out of Steven's mouth surprised him, but the fact that again, he couldn't feel a single lie in the boy's statement.  
  
"This whole world is so similar but at the same time so different" Connie added, pointing at the small evidence box "you can look through our cell phones".  
  
Officer Terakado handed Connie and Steven their phones as they quickly unlocked them.  
"See? This is my home, and family!" A younger Steven stood smiling on the beach accompanied by a robust middle aged man, and 3 women of different skin colors. In the background a small cabin could be seen, at the feet of an impressive stone carving of a goddess with two faces.  
  
"Beach city, Crystal temple?" Officer Terakado mumbled, understanding what that original address meant.  
  
"See?" Connie, on the other hand, showed inspector Tsukauchi a phone with apps he'd never seen before, including a so-called 'Woogle Maps'. "Everything is different!" She pointed her finger at the maps in the phone and handed it to him.  
  
Tsukauchi looked at the map displayed on Connie's Cellphone, at a simple glance he could tell something was definitely wrong.  
  
Terakado looked through the pictures along with Tsukauchi. The kids photos painted quite a picture. Several locations popped on image. Structures never before seen, people with heteromorphic quirks or all colors and shapes posed to the camera as if it was a family photo.  
  
"Ow!" The enraptured officer Terakado's concentration was broken by a sudden warm feeling. She pulled out the stone in an instant not noticing that both Steven and Connie planted their eyes on her.  
  
"Ohh, Officer?" Connie asked "W-where did you find that rock?"  
  
Tsukauchi looked at Steven and Connie, they looked on edge, and focused solely on the rock in Terakado's Hands.  
  
"Ah.. I found it in the ground on my way to wor-huh!?" A small flash of light interrupted her much to the horror of the kids “What the...?"  
  
"DROP IT!" Steven yelled to the surprised officer, not waiting a second, Connie jumped over the table and knocked the rock out of Terakado's hand.  
  
"What's the meaning of this?!" Tsukauchi's shock was quickly replaced with confusion as he looked towards the rock. Further flashes of light shone as the rock started levitating a couple meters above the ground.  
  
"Steven!" Connie gently pushed officer Terakado while Steven put himself in between them and the glowing rock, knowing what was coming next.  
  
Tsukauchi was in awe as several beautiful silhouettes started emerging, only to immediately glitch out like a faulty video game projection accompanied by a loud and painful scream.  
  
*SHIREEEEEEK!!!* a new figure emerged from the light, mismatched arms of different colors and lengths connected to 2 different purple torsos. A painful array of several arms and legs provided footing for the abomination while its upper arms flailed erratically.  
  
"What the hell is that!" Officer Terakado pulled her handgun, the creature twisted as if looking for the origin of the sound, without any eyes to speak for.  
  
"HEY HEY HEY! LOOK AT ME!" Steven yelled trying to catch the mutant’s attention.  
  
*BANG*  
  
A shot from Terakado's gun came out only to stop centimeters from the creature's green writhing arm. "WHA..!" Terakado felt her gun being pulled towards the creature, along with everything metal in the room!  
  
"Steven! It's not looking at you!" Connie yelled, a cluster mutant would normally go towards Steven immediately as it felt the close bond of his gem, however this one kept looking at them, as if it was curious?  
  
"I..I, I'm sorry!" Tsukauchi observed how Steven said that to the creature. In the blink of an eye Steven closed the distance between them, hugged the creature and whispered "sorry..." The hug became tighter and tighter. The Inspector could see the creature's focus go away as it tried to get free but to no avail, in one last effort, Steven's Hug bisected the mutant, which immediately exploded in a puff of smoke.  
  
"Hands in the air!" Tsukauchi ordered.  
  
"J..just let me finish" Steven picked up the rock and gently enveloped it in a pink energy bubble, then raised his hands. Connie moved next to Steven, hands risen as well. Captain Kondo and Mt. Lady came running just seconds after the commotion died down  
  
"What the Hell Happened here!"  
  
#  
  
Captain Kondo sighed in frustration. After a quick cleanup, the whole affair had ended with more questions than answers.  
  
He was in charge of a small police station, and now he had to write a humongous report justifying what happened minutes ago, As well as finding a way to contain what the kids insisted was a dangerous creature inside the pink bubble.  
  
"So, these kids claim to be from another dimension?"  
  
"They never outright said it that way, they showed me their maps and landmarks, they are similar, yet quite different to what we have here" Tsukauchi answered with a bit of incredulity.  
  
"So what? Do we send them to a psychiatrist until we can find their planet in a galaxy far far away?"  
  
"Captain, I am a rational person, and I believe that this whole mess may have a rational explanation."  
  
"You yourself said they didn't lie about that again and again, so, you 'rational' brain is gonna tell me they come from another dimension?!"  
  
"I never said I agreed" Tsukauchi stood up to see the captain face to face. "The best lie is the one you yourself believe it's true." The captain simply sneered "The kids have been trained, the first thing the girl did the moment they saw the rock was separating it from officer Terakado, and kept her away, they both knew what she was dealing with."  
  
"What are you implying"  
  
"These kids have some sort of Hero Training, yet no one has any record about them, I'm sure whomever trained them will get to them when they feel the moment is correct. We could let them go while keeping them observed, a bit of freedom to reward their trust"  
  
"Hmmm" Captain Kondo thought about it, they'd normally have just let them go with a warning most of the time, and whoever planned such a convoluted scheme to train young heroes to this extent wouldn't want their investment lost. Releasing them under surveillance could work in their favor, and the kids. "We have a place that could help..."  
  
#  
  
Izuku Midoriya made his regular jog back home, with the school in hiatus he had to keep himself in shape while he figured how to use One For All, when a new light coming out the window called the attention of the young hero in training.  
  
The apartment had been uninhabited ever since he had memory, but now the lights were turned on and he could even hear faint music coming from the inside.

  
"Huh? We have new neighbors?"


	3. First Evaluations

_The Afternoon sun burned the sandstone of the Beta Kindergarten giving it that uncomfortable shine, the dry air made the dust fly, and the eerie silence made the location one of the most inhospitable places to be. Unless you were the Crystal Gems!._

_"You sure this is the place, Dot?" Amethyst rubbed her eyes to take some of the sand off. Even after the gem empire had stopped their expansion, the Kindergartens remained one of their oldest indelible sins._

_"Affirmative"_

_"Why would the Kindergarten be affecting the warp travel?, especially one that hasn't been active in millennia" Pearl rubbed her chin._

_"Your guess is as good as mine" Peridot answered "The only thing I can think of is that there was another project going on here, because well" Peridot took a look at her tablet while walking towards one of the misshapen holes for a close examination "this wasn't going to be a Kindergarten in the first place."_

_"Whatever, Lets just get on with it dudes"_

_"Not yet" the calm voice of Garnet interrupted_

_"Why?"_

_"We're missing a couple team members" Garnet adjusted her glasses with a small smile._

_Right on cue, a cloud of dust made its way towards the gems from far away, the distinctive roar of an engine made clear to everyone there, including Garnet, who didn't even need to turn her head._

_"Can't be"_

_"It is!"_

_The Dondai Supremo made a stop, wheels shrieking on the floor, finally turning off a few meters away from the Crystal gems. As the doors opened, the gems couldn't contain their joy._

_"Hey guys!" Steven greeted his family with a warm smile, accompanied by Connie waving at them._

_"STEVEN" Amethyst, Peridot and Pearl ran to envelop the young man and woman in a warm hug, followed closely by Garnet, both being showered in questions._

_"How's the Road trip going"_

_"I didn't know you'd be here dude!"_

_Garnet lifted the whole group in a massive hug and said "Welcome back"_

...

#

"HMMMMNG" Connie opened her eyes as she slowly got up from bed, her joints made a slight 'pop' as she got rid of the stiffness from the night before. It had been a couple days after their disastrous landing into this new and strange world, and while they were trying to be optimistic...

"Connie! Did you sleep well?" Connie noticed slight bags around Steven's eyes.

"Steven."

The boy simply lowered his head, he knew it was useless to try and hide it from her. "I'm sorry" He had been trying to find the Gems through his power of Astral projection. Or find any sign of Gem presence in here, but without something to ground himself, some 'emotional Beacon' to focus his mind on, without a place he felt any connection towards, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Connie walked closer to Steven's bed and sat next to him "I- I know Steven" she softly held the boy's palm "This might be the worse we've ever been, but there's no reason to lose hope". Steven closed his hand around Connie, lifting to their faces, Connie getting a pretty good look at the bracelets they had been outfitted with, if they tried messing with them in any way or form, they'd be stopped by the police and any hero nearby so fast it wouldn't be funny. "I just hope that my idea of cooperating with the heroes was the right call".

"I'm sure it will be." Steven's smile reassured the young woman.

*sigh* "Well then, let's see what the hero assigned to our case will need!"

Officer Terakado was about to finish her shift in the safe house. Everything was going well so far, and the kids had been nothing but honest in their answers. On Inspector Tsukauchi's suggestion, she asked further questions, rephrasing and prodding for more details see if she could pry more truth from them. However the Kid's story had not changed. I mean they even theorized having landed in "another dimension", the photos of alien crystalline alien ruins that they claimed to have explored, and placed in several places of the map, the photos of creatures similar to the 'thing' that attacked the station, and the weird names of the places they visited, sounded so elaborate, so overcomplicated to be a crafted lie for the raising of these children, however everything could be rationally explained, right?

_*Ding Dong*_

The doorbell rang pushing the policewoman out of her thoughts and back to reality. "Yeah, that's it", she walked towards the door, in all this time of high monitoring the kids simply didn't try to escape, they talked about finding their family, the so called Crystal Gems, but also about cooperating with the heroes and the police, not knowing their conversations were being logged. Well, if everything went well after today, they'd be given more freedom. "Just the hero coming for the quirk evaluation and, Oh..."

Steven and Connie came down the stairs as fast as they could only to find a very peculiar character sitting on the couch. It was a woman that evidently took the 'sexy hero costume' too literally, dressed in a very tight fitting outfit, practically skin tight, accompanied by a corset, belt and boots, looked very interested in the young people coming down the stairs.

"Well, so, are you ready for today?" the R rated hero looked at the flustered teens, her presentation had been on point.

"Aaaaah?" both Steven and Connie were a bit at a loss of words.

"My Name is Midnight, the R - Rated Hero." Nemuri smiled at the young people awkwardly trying to answer, she read the reports about them stating to 'being from another world', but her presence sometimes took people's guards down, so her little experiment continued "I've been told a lot about you two, how you landed here, the creature you defeated..."

"We did what we could against them" Steven answered.

"Are you sure?"

"We did explain that what we did to the cluster was more like knocking them out" Connie chimed in "We also told them that popping the bubble would allow them to regenerate, so it was better to keep them like that"

The Hero stood up and looked at the youngsters "Well, we'll ask you about this on another occasion, right now we need to take care of another matter at hand concerning you." In a swift motion she pointed her riding crop at Steven "Especially you!"

"Eh, ah Me?!"

"That's right, after your small stunt at the police office, Inspector Tsukauchi suggested that we should give you some kind of quirk assessment, besides with a quirk as powerful and versatile as yours you should have no problem at all"

"Ehh, okay but, c-can I ask why?"

"Simple, Any quirk can be dangerous if the person who has it cannot properly control it" Midnight explained and immediately saw Steven and Connie's expression change, images of the monstrous being, the Kaijuu that Steven turned into when his power, his self image and his being had gone out of control like an enormous panic attack flooded their memories. "Um, are you -?"

"Yes, yes no problem" Both Steven and Connie quickly changed their semblance.

"Well then, um if you are up to it, would you like to go?"

"Yes!" both again responded in unison, while the assessment was something unexpected, they booth were sure it would lend some credence to their claims.

* * *

"Here we are!" Midnight announced as Steven and Connie entered the what appeared to be a huge hangar. One by one the lamps atop the very high ceiling revealed various mechanical devices. There was everything, from Hydraulic presses, to exercise equipments and many other devices that, outside from Gem technology, the kids hadn't seen on earth, ever.

"Wow" Steven and Connie gasped in amazement.

"You may excuse the mess, but this isn't really my workstation" Midnight giggled only to find a voice coming from one of the loudspeakers around answer back.

"Well if you don't like the mess, you should have helped me clean before putting ME up to this as well"

"Who's that?" Connie asked. One of the many screens that lined the walls turned on, letting her see the other hero in charge, a man with a helmet that looked made out of construction machinery showed there.

"Name's Power Loader, I was here to support Ms. Midnight's assessment, who SHOULD have told me way more in advance before this."

"Oh come on!" Midnight coyly teased the short man, "I knew you'd get it ready in no time."

"Uuugh... okay, please go to the athletics area" the lights illuminated a small court in one of the corners of the building "we'll test your physical endurance, Midnight will explain.

"Connie, you'll go first." The girl simply nodded and put herself in position "you'll run 3 laps around this court, do it as fast as you can. Get Ready, Go!" As soon as midnight gave the signal, the girl ran as fast as she could. From his work station, Power Loader took a look at her statistics.

"Hmmmmm"

"She seems to be fit enough to be an Athlete" a second voice responded from the back, Power Loader nodded and immediately responded back.

"You sure you're up to it? Kayama and I could manage this no problem.

"I'm sure" the heavy footfalls of his body covered in bandages after his fight in the USJ disaster against the monstrous Noumu from the League of Villains had slowed him down considerably, however, Shota Aizawa, better known as Eraser Head, was not going to be stopped by his wounds if he had any say in it...

"And Done!" Midnight glanced at her stopwatch as the girl finished her laps. "Really good job Connie."

"Haaa- haaa- Thanks" she answered while regaining her breath

"Steven, Same as Connie "

"Okay."

"Steven!" Connie called him before he put himself in position "Give it your all!"

"Ready, GO!" Steven started running, accelerating as much as he could however... "Hmmm" Connie peeked at Midnight's stopwatch, Steven was already behind her time for the first lap, he was so behind he hadn't even finished, was he? Oh no.

'Steady... Steady' Steven thought as he ran, he was trying to run as fast as he could, but whenever he approached to that speed those images came back, The pink skin, the out of control swelling, the sensation

"Steven!" Connie Yelled having ran ahead. The young man immediately noticed her.

'W-what am I' The conversation of today morning, the remembrance, was he afraid of himself again?...

"Give it your all!" Connie yelled as Steven crossed the line marking the first lap. However as soon as Steven put his foot down his speed started increasing.

'This is no time to hesitate' Steven's skin adopted a pink hue as his speed continued to grow.

"Oh wow" Midnight exclaimed as the young Steven's speed increased so drastically, before finishing the second lap he already had overcome the Connie's time, and yet the moment Midnight marked the beginning of the third lap...

"I - I'm done" Steven stopped, the pinkish hue of his skin was vanishing giving way to his normal skin tone.

"What!" Midnight stopped the watch. Less than a second had passed between the second and third lap "Power Loader?!"

"I-It's true!" the man started going through the cameras on, activating the slow-motion feature,and even those were having trouble catching the blur that was Steven moving.

Hidden within the shadows, Shota was surprised, even with all his experience, the boy simply vanished from his view, this was just the first test,

"Oh.. Okay, I think we should go to the other tests before long"

* * *

The staff at UA was having an important meeting. After the whole "League of villains" attack on the USJ fiasco, they had been running around like crazy to both keep the security on point and decide other courses of action, they had unanimously decided to resume their normal operations, they had decided to reopen for normal operations while beefing the security. It was their way to say that UA wouldn't get intimidated by a group of villains.

After the initial topics though, the Headmaster Nedzu, decided to ask Midnight about her experience with the particular guests. "So, Ms. Nemuri, did you have any impression on the youngsters you went to evaluate?"

Midnight nodded, stood up and activated the holographic projector in the meeting table "Just to get everyone caught up, 2 days ago a Ray of light impacted one of the parks in Mustafu. The police passed it off as a quirk misuse, and detained the 2 teenagers behind the incident."

The number one Hero, All-Might nodded "I heard about that case", the projection showed the photos of Steven and Connie.

"However, once they were picked up by the police a few strange responses and situations brought the attention of Inspector Tsukauchi, the kids claimed that the world didn't coincide with what they knew, that they were 'from another world'"

"YEAAAH!" Present Mic couldn't help but smile at the silly comment "If I were a dumb teenager in troubles with the police I think I would come up with a lie like that, eh!"

"One thing lending credence to what they say is their status, they both have no records ever existing, the investigators have looked for them everywhere, missing persons database, medical records, student registries both here and in the US with no results whatsoever. The other thing is Steven"

The projector started showing the video of today's assessment.

"When the police asked Steven about his quirk, after explaining to him what a quirk was, he listed a series of abilities that require consideration. The kid mentioned being able to shape shift, create shields and barriers made out of 'hard light', increase his speed unnaturally, same with his strength, among others that we didn't get time to test for."

The Teachers raised a their eyebrows at the display, thanks to Tsukauchi, it was a one hundred percent clear that the boy had not lied, hence why the lack of records was baffling.

"This is not a quirk that would pass unnoticed!" Ectoplasm said noticing the demonstration, Eraser, who up to this point had remained silent chimed in with his opinion.

"There is also a detail that I could notice while on the test." The hero put his bandaged hands in the table "I could tell that Steven was containing himself for most of the test"

Even All Might reacted to that comment, he had heard of people with strong quirks, especially those that didn't develop them correctly, falling, or making a turn for the worse. A powerful quirk was a high valued asset in the world of crime, and even worse, strong, versatile, or useful quirks would get 'him' to put a target on their backs...

"While I'm not sure what would the boy's upper limit might be, I can tell he wasn't really giving his all during the test, he was building up to it, as if he feared what would happen if he pushed it too far. While the motive is not clear yet, if I were to guess, I believe he may have lost control of it in the past".

Various murmurs filled the room, while the boy was powerful, it was obvious he needed to learn more control, some heroes

"What about the girl?" asked professor Sekijiro. "Did she show any equally powerful quirk?"

Midnight switched the presentation back to Connie, as her part of the Test became visible "Under the recommendation of Inspector Tsukauchi we gave Connie Maheswaran a basic assessment." The professors saw the girl evade the robotic drones with some ease as she she made her way through the challenge "while she mentioned, being quirkless, she seems to have some kind of combat training like Steven before. Also, give her a sword" Connie, now with her characteristic sword at hand cut through the a whole contingent of machines without any issue "and the challenge diminishes considerably."

"When Tsukauchi informed me of this event I grew curious, hence why I asked Nemuri to perform the evaluation." Nedzu informed the rest of the staff "A quirk like Steven's is not gonna go unnoticed for too long, Connie is a smart and resourceful girl and seems pretty close to Steven, they both fell into this situation together, I think we should help them reach their potential, and the people in charge of their case agree somewhat."

"The semester already started, are you suggesting we just get them in a class, how?" Professor Maijima raised his hand.

"While the authorities are starting to look into their origins and legal status, they have suggested the cover story of a 'Temporary exchange program'. That way they can be integrated on a class for any amount of time that is deemed necessary." The mouse like headmaster simply walked atop the table and clarified. "Besides, we'll just be making them an offer, whether they take it or not is entirely on them."

...

Hours later, long after the meeting wrapped up, Toshinori Yagi, the skeletal man who was the real form of the number one Hero, All Might, continued the conversation with the headmaster in the lonely meeting room.

"I know that you accepted this after hearing about the kid's quirk, but is there other reason you want them both in UA? You could have just simply suggested one of the smaller schools"

"Before you knew me, did you know animals could have a quirk?"

"Well, I, I heard rumors, but even today the occurrence is so rare that it is still considered a bit of an urban legend"

"Yet here I am" the mouse man smiled "I don't say that I 100% buy their explanation of coming from a different dimension, and yet here they are, what Steven has could be a quirk, or could be something we don't know about" Nedzu opened the file describing the creature that attacked the police station.

"That.."

"That was the creature Steven stopped in the police station few days ago, still encapsulated on the boy's forcefield as far as I can tell, however" a few presses of the buttons and the projector came to life showing other photos and reports from all over Japan. "These ones are not."

Toshinori took a good look, at least half a dozen similar yet varied misshapen creatures, messes of arms, legs, mouths and torsos having been either stopped or sighted in different places, none of them dating from before the event that brought Steven and Connie into this world "After seeing this, I decided to give the kids the benefit of the doubt."


	4. Of First Days and Growing Troubles

Mina Ashido made her way through the long hallways of UA back to her classroom. She got up super early and now couldn't wait to see her classmates once more. The days off were fine, but after having been attacked by actual villains, everyone had been on edge. But she didn't mind, she was ready for any- who was that?

The first thing she saw entering her 1-A classroom was a boy in deep thought. She had never seen him before and he was wearing the official UA uniform, so this had to be a student right? Well she'd have to ask him of course!

"Okay" Steven said to himself after remembering his situation "It's just a school, and maybe I'll learn how to control this better, so that's good, right?" Steven's mind went straight to that day…

#

_"A School?!" Both Steven And Connie fell on the Sofa as Mid-night gave the offer. Few days after the assessment they were getting more freedom as they expected, just had that little condition attached._

_"A Hero school, and not any Hero school, but one of the most prestigious ones, UA! I am actually a teacher from that school" Said Midnight with a hint of pride._

_"Ahh I don't know" said Steven_

_"Well, this is just an offer, there might be other arrangements, but the people handling your case feel that this is the better use of your time," Kayama added "After analyzing your Quirk performance Steven, it was considered that it is quite powerful, so while the investigators and government employees taking care of your legal situation here are working, they feel that you training on the responsible use of your uirk would be an excellent gesture of good faith, and well, not to be so proud or anything. But I'm sure you couldn't get a better place than UA."_

_"Um, I don't have a power or anything that can be considered a 'Quirk'." Connie interjected._

_"UA has other departments besides the Hero courses, you can attend the General Education course and make use of the facilities just like any other student would, while we cannot force you to accept, I think you both attending UA would be a net positive." She could see both kids hesitant "Besides this, our staff has access to contacts and connections that span the whole country, if you attend UA, your case would also get handed by us. I am sure you'd be the first to know of any developments." Their expressions changed right after the mention._

_"Can we-?"_

_"Don't have to decide right now" Midnight smiled "Just think about it..."_

#

"Hello!"

"Woah!" Steven quickly jumped out of his thoughts as he turned to greet the girl. A pink girl with wild hair, and 2 tiny crooked horns looked back at him with a smile. "Sorry I was a bit distracted"

"I've never seen you before, are you a new student?"

"Yeah," Steven answered almost immediately "My name is Steven Universe."

"Wow, well My name is Mina Ashido, Nice to meet you Steven!" the happy disposition of the pink girl made him forget a bit about his worries, "You're not from around here, right?"

"Yeah, I'm- ah!" Steven felt his chair rattled as somebody pulled it from behind.

"Move," Steven saw a young man with spiky blond hair holding to the back of his chair ever so tightly. He had this subtle scowl on his face as if that were his normal expression.

"Ahh sorry," Steven awkwardly stood up as the young man took the seat, staring daggers at him.

"Don't worry about Bakugo, he's kind of a grump, *ribbit*" A new girl that entered the Classroom added, she had long dark hair and put her hands close to her mouth. With her current stance and wide mouth, she easily reminded Steven of a frog.

Eventually, after a few more students entered, including another blond-haired man with a black streak in his hair, a young man with spiky red hair, and a girl with most of her black hair in a ponytail, another student came in. He had these wide-eyes, similar to Steven himself and he had messy green hair. He seemed to glance at Steven for a second, curious. _Who's that?_ he thought. _Is he new?_

Then after a few minutes, every student was seated in the classroom. Then, they began to chat. "I wonder who's gonna be teaching us today…" stated Tohru a completely invisible girl, save for her clothes.

"I'm not sure," replied Ojiro, an average-looking student with a tail.

"Who are they talking about?" Steven asked Mina as half the class seemed to be talking about the Teacher.

"Professor Aizawa got terribly hurt during an incident weeks ago, he's probably still in the Hosp-" The classroom door flew open as what Steven could only describe as a 'Living Mummy' slowly stumbled into the teacher's Desk "O-Or he's gonna be right here." Steven could only visually cringe as he saw the man take his place. He wasn't the only one as when Shota Aizawa took a look around the classroom, had to ignore the few voices that unanimously called out, " _Professor, are you all right!?"_

"You," Aizawa pointed towards Steven "To the Front of the classroom." The few that hadn't paid him any mind immediately looked at Steven as he walked next to the desk, "Introduce yourself."

Steven pretty much felt a bit put off considering Aizawa and his cynical tone. "My name is Steven Universe," he took a short breath and continued "I'm from America, I studied in the Lensherr institute in the Delmarva region, and thanks to UA's staff, I'll be joining this class for the rest of the year."

"You can now ask him a few questions." Added the teacher.

"What is your Quirk?!" asked the boy with messy green hair with a casual sense of curiosity on his face.

"Uhh, w-well, I can make barriers and force fields with light and-" Steven started explaining when someone else immediately interrupted.

"Where did you live?" The question came from another odd person whose head looked like that of a bird.

"Do only turn pink? Or can you turn other colors?" Asked Mina, Steven's eyes widened, he looked at his hands, which were pink! He was starting to glow again from the conversation alone. He tried to put the nervousness as far away as possible, quickly causing the glow to fade, prompting a small 'aww' from the pink girl.

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE!?" Steven could hear Bakugo yell from the back.

"Bakugo!" yelled a rather strict-looking student with glasses, "That's no way to talk to a new student on his first day here!"

"Shut it Rocket-legs!"

"That's enough!" the Professor interrupted. With a gesture he asked Steven to take the first empty seat he found and addressed the class "Steven is not the only new thing we have today, you are going to have to prepare for a greater challenge."

Steven could see the tension rising in the group, all waiting in anticipation to the teachers announcement, even he had to wonder what kind of challenge would the class have to face.

"Very soon, the school will be holding the annual Sports Festival." And just like that, the tension crashed so profoundly that Steven could swear he heard it.

#

"Sports… Festival?" Connie wondered aloud, "What's that?"

This earned her a few odd looks, including from one odd-looking young man with dark, pale blue hair.

Currently, Connie was in a different classroom from Steven's as it would have made their cover easier if she, due to being 'Quirkless' as it were, attended the General Course.

Her homeroom teacher, Decked in an attire that reminded her of the cowboy movies of old, and a face hidden behind a faintly horse shaped gas mask, Snipe, noticing her confusion decided to explain. "The Sports Festival, at least in what concerns UA, is not an ordinary Event. Every year the students demonstrate their skills, abilities and quirks to the world on this televised event to cement their position as future heroes."

The student's expressions all around Connie lit up in excitement while the teacher continued the explanation "It is not mandatory for the students of the Hero course to participate in the event, but is expected as their future opportunities in the world of heroes can be attained there, and Students of any course are welcome to join if they decide to do so, in rare occasions, Students from different courses that had an exceptional performance can be offered to switch courses."

Connie smiled at this revelation, she wasn't in Steven's class, but this event, well this was something they could work on together "Professor, What do I need to do to participate?" At this response, the blue haired young man frowned.

#

"Strictly speaking there are no limitations as to whether or not you can apply to compete," Aizawa stated, "Although it's pretty much a given that many big names in the Hero community will be there, so it will increase the odds of you joining one of the more popular or influential Hero Agencies out there. So this is an opportunity to get your name out there." Many of the students in the classroom began to have increasingly determined looks on their faces as their teacher continued, "One chance a year, three chances in a lifetime, no aspiring hero can afford to miss this festival." One quick glance around the room and Steven could _easily_ tell that everyone was fired up for this event! "So that means you'd better not slack off on your training," he then looked over at Steven, "That especially goes for you too new kid." This shocked the young hybrid as Aizawa then addressed the whole class, "Are we clear?"

"Yes sir!" The only person apart from Steven who didn't reply unanimously with the rest of the glass was the green-haired boy, who looked like he was deep in thought.

After a few of their classes, the 1-A students had some time to chat before leaving for the Lunch break. The green-haired was simply at his desk thinking when he heard Steven talk to him, "Hey, um, that last teacher called you Izuku, right?"

"Hm?" Izuku looked up at Steven and said, "Oh, yeah. Sorry for being so overly enthusiastic earlier."

"It's fine," Steven said, unsure about how he should react to someone outright asking what his Quirk is, "You seemed to be a bit in thought."

"Well.. yeah… The Sports Festival is pretty important in terms of UA and for its students. It basically has the Hero, Support, Business, and General Course Students all compete against one another in a physical competition to get themselves scouted by the best Agencies out there."

"Ah, I see," Steven then had a thought, "Hey… what do you think the odds are of someone who's Quirkless making it far if they competed in the Sports Festival."

"Hm…"Izuku stated, "I guess it depends on how skilled they are to compensate for the lack of a Quirk… Why?"

"Oh, uh, my friend, Connie, she's here on an exchange program too, but she's in the General Course, so…"

"She shouldn't even bother." both Izuku and Steven turned to see Bakugo with a look of disgust on his face, "This event is for people WORTHY of being heroes! People like her should just be content with watching on the sidelines."

Izuku noticed Steven closing his hand with such force his knuckles turned white, for a second, as he immediately saw the young man start to emit a faint pink glow from his skin. "Excuse me…?" Steven said, clearly upset at someone talking about his friend like that.

"Ah, Ah Steven your-Your skin!" Izuku could feel the tension rising. However Katsuky, or Kacchan as Izuku knew him by, was not really helping his case.

"You as well, for that matter" Bakugo continued "I don't know what kind of excuse you have to have entered this class, but let me tell you something, you pink lightbulb," Izuku looked nervous between the two as Bakugo continued, " _you don't belong here_. The sooner you get that through your head, the sooner we'll stop having problems, Understood?"

At that moment, as Izuku was able to see, the sleeves of Steven's uniform jacket started to fill. He could actually make out the shape of the young man's biceps as the fabric started to strain and the glow became more intense. His back looked slightly broader from where he was standing and... Was he hallucinating or did Steven grow an inch taller too!?

"You two, Stop!" The intervention of the student with glasses, who was identified earlier as the class rep, Tenya Iida, interrupted the tense situation.

"Bah!" Bakugo simply looked the other way as he prepared to go towards the exit.

"Steven?"

"AH!" Steven immediately noticed his changed appearance and Izuku saw how quickly he shrank back to his normal state. The glow also diminished until it disappeared.

"Um, are you okay?" Izuku asked with both concern and curiosity.

Steven was a bit ashamed, did that really just happen? Would this mean he would relapse?

However, suddenly one of the other students, a brunette named Ochako Uraraka, suddenly called out, "Uh, guys!?"

This snapped Steven out of these thoughts as he and Izuku looked in her direction. She was standing in front of the doorway exiting the classroom, only to encounter a large ground of students simply standing there, looking at them while whispering and talking quietly to each other. "Wh- Why are you all here!?" she asked, dumbfounded at the sight.

"Seriously guys!" asked a short kid with odd, purple hair whose name Steven never really learned, "Why are you blocking the doorway? _I won't let you take us hostage!_ "

"Isn't it obvious?" Bakugo said, suddenly bored at this display, "They're scouting the competition. I.e. us." He then merely walked up to the doorway in Uraraka's place, much to the shock of a few of the 1-A Students. He seemed to look at the other students in the hall for a second. Then he said, "At least you all know what a future pro hero looks like. Now _move it_ extras."

At that moment a few of the 1-A Students, including Iida and Uraraka shouted in protest at how Bakugo addressed these other students until suddenly, someone popped out of the crowd and actually addressed the 1-A students directly. It was a student with dark, pale blue hair, "So… this is Class 1-A?" He managed to scootch his way to the front of the crowd and continued, "I heard you guys were pretty impressive. But right now, you just sound like an ass… Is everyone in the Hero Course delusional or just you?" As everyone else tried to deny this opinion in protest, he just looked at Steven, "Hm… so, you must be one of the new exchange students we got at the last minute. It's pretty sad that you're in a class with a bunch of ego-maniacs. Then again, they must have found some pretty cheap loophole to let you enroll here long after the Entrance Exam, so you might just fit in easily."

The implications as to what he is saying made Steven nervous, not so much that he would start glowing again, but enough to make him want to be anywhere else at the moment. He then saw Connie in the crowd, who obviously looked uncomfortable with the whole situation as well. He then continued, moreso to Steven, "I originally enrolled to be here in the Hero Course as well, but like many others here I was forced to take a different path. You should know something, new kid, if one of us in the General Course does well at the Sports Festival, then the teachers can decide to transfer us to the Hero Course. But, that also means that to make room they'd have to transfer you or one of your new friends _out_." This made every 1-A Student visibly cringe as the young man continued his speech, "The others may be here to 'scout out the competition' or even because they are curious, but _I'm_ here to tell you that if you don't go all out and bring your very best, I'll personally steal your spot from right under you." He then looked Steven dead in the eye as he then topped with, "Consider this a declaration of war."

Steven started glowing to Izuku's surprise, it looked different than the last time, this time no transformation took place, but he could tell Steven was nervous after that verbal beat down. He had to acknowledge though, that his addition to the class was suspicious, and that just as sure the rest of the students would not take it well.

As Shinso took a few steps back he noticed his new 'classmate' standing a few places back. He slowly made his way to her place and without even looking at her in the eyes he stated "I'm not giving you a pass either, so I hope you have what it takes to be in UA."

At this point Connie was just as internally nervous as Steven, especially considering he was far less of a jerk and more reserved during their classes. Bakugo on the other hand was a bit ticked off. This 'reject' essentially insulted him and brushed him aside. However, just as he was about to say something else, another student spoke up, "HEY YOU!"

He had some silver-white hair and his eyes seemed to have some kind of eyelashes that make it look like he was wearing some kind of superhero mask. This person continued to speak with a slight air of aggression to him, "I'm from Class 1-B next door to you! We all heard that you fought some villains and I came to see if that was true! But you're just a bunch of brats who think you're better than us, _aren't you!?_ "

At that point, several of the class 1-A students had the same thought, _Crap, everyone hates our class now!_

However, suddenly Bakugo just walked away. ["HEY COME BACK HERE! DON'T YOU IGNORE ME!" the silver-haired student yelled]

"Wait, where are you going!?" The redhead, now identified as Eijiro Kirishima said, "Aren't you gonna say something back!? It's your fault we're in this mess!"

Bakugo stopped, and he suddenly spoke with an honest and serious tone that _heavily_ contradicted his cocky attitude up to this point, "They don't matter." This made everyone confused as he followed up with, "All that matters is that I beat them." He then simply walked away again.

Steven looked at him for a second as he walked away, the way he spoke earlier actually reminded him of Jasper…

#

Later, after school, Connie and Steven were able to meet up and were currently taking the train to the live-in area where they would be placed for the time being.

They two looked stressed, given the day's events, however they did take the opportunity to go over their day.

"Haaaa," Connie Sighed, while Steven sat a bit flattened to the seat.

"So, was your day as interesting as mine?" asked Steven, trying to lighten up the mood.

"Well, I've had worse… I mean, not since I was little, but I had worse," she added with a smile, "So... how are your classmates?"

"They're Ni-" his mind went immediately towards Bakugo and then corrected "I mean they are _mostly_ nice people."

"I guess mine are also 'mostly nice' as you got to see." Connie added remembering Shinso "I underestimated how seriously everyone is taking this Sports Festival. But now I think we should do our best too."

"Huh?"

"Think about it, the gems must have landed around the whole country right? And since you're not able to find them yet, we should leave them some clues to find us the moment they wake up."

"So what better way to tell them where we are than making an impression so big that people will talk about it everywhere!" Steven completed the thought.

"Exactly!" Connie stated, her face shined with renewed ambition. The train stopped and as the young couple got down a voice called to Steven.

"Hey Steven!" Both looked to the side and saw Izuku Midoriya walking up to them.

"Izuku!" Steven said cheerfully, "Connie, this is Izuku, he's one of my Classmates. Izuku, this is Connie. She's the friend I was telling you about earlier."

"Nice to meet you" added Connie as the trio made their way out of the station.

"So you two got into the same exchange program?" Asked Izuku. "Wow, did you go to the same school?"

"Hehe, not exactly, I've known Steven since I was 11, when my father's job brought us to Bea- uh- to Steven's hometown." At this point she had to carefully select her words, choosing to take a risk and put a bit of fact into the fiction she and Steven had to roll with, "Steven didn't really have a full grasp on his quirk at the time so we ended up stuck in a light bubble at the bottom of the sea."

"What?!" Izuku looked shocked.

"Hehehe, yeah, wa-wasn't as bad as it sounds" Steven laughed awkwardly. "I did have problems controlling it, but she helped me a lot at that time, and we got off from that issue in one piece"

"Oh, yeah, and your Quirk is linked to your emotions somehow right?" Izuku said with a sense of curiosity.

Steven felt nervous as he did end up having his powers flare out for a second thanks to Bakugo, "Y-Yeah…"

"I thought as much, as with the Pink glow and the shapeshif-"

"You were shapeshifting?" Connie's worried tone immediately convinced young Midoriya that he shouldn't have said that.

Steven suddenly looked worried, ashamed even. Izuku then tried to defend him, "W-Wait! It wasn't his fault, it was because another student in our class riled him up, by saying you didn't deserve to compete in the sports festival and-!"

"It's okay Izuku, regardless of the reason, it's something I should have told her myself, that's all…" Connie, turning towards Izuku, just tried to defuse the situation as well.

"Yeah, I mean, I was just a bit surprised, that's all." The group of teenagers then turned and entered a small apartment building on the street.

"Wait," Steven said in realization, "You live in this building?"

"Yeah. I live on the second floor," Izuku explained.

"That's pretty cool! So do we!" Steven stated, "Looks like we'll be neighbors then!"

"Well, It was a pleasure meeting you Izuku Midoriya, but I think we'll just turn in for the rest of the day," Connie stated, "Later!"

"See you tomorrow!" Added Steven as he pulled a key from his pocket when he heard a woman exclaim.

"Izuku welcome-oh, Good Evening." Inko Midoriya greeted the newcomers. "Are you the new neighbors?."

"Yeah" Connie answered

"Oh, Nice to meet you," the woman responded. "My name is Inko Midoriya, I, I guess you already know my son."

"They're new exchange students at UA, they just started their first day today." Izuku informed his mother.

"Yeah, hehe," Steven continued, "We are from America, I'm Steven Quartz Universe."

"My name is Connie Maheswaran." Steven opened the door to their current home,and Inko could see how bare it was.

"Are you living on your own?" she asked, prompting a somewhat rushed response from the duo.

"No, no, no, don't worry, we are currently alone here, b-but we have family close." Steven responded.

"Yeah, a-and we call our parents often." Connie blurted.

"I, I'm sorry, I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, I think that having your family so far away might be something hard to get used to." Inko apologized, "If you ever need something, please, just ask."

"Thanks, Mrs. Midoriya" the teenagers entered their current home. As the door closes behind them the teenagers breathe a sigh of relief. Their Minds went straight towards the family they left behind, only to get more motivated. First to find the gems, and then, a way back home, no matter the obstacles!

#

Within a dark alley, as the sun went down, a figure remained still, watching the world pass it by.

* _Sparks.._ *

It saw them move left and right, up and down, they gather in groups and moved around.

* _Confused_ *

The misshapen creature stumbled heavily left and right due to their mismatched size legs, it tightened its humongous left red hand connected to an equally buff orange extremity, while a small clawed blue hand wriggled in the place where its head, atop a thin purple torso, should be.

It had awoken just recently In a dark alley, seeing several tiny sparks walking around, at first it ignored them, but the more time passed, their inner void, their "incompleteness" kept nagging at them, sure, this sparks weren't like theirs, but, maybe it didn't matter? They were still light, maybe that could fill their void? The creature grew more impatient the more time it passed.

_*Light*_

The creature snarled from a nonexistent mouth, panting heavily despite not having lungs, the more time it watched the lights move around the more empty it felt. Their void kept growing and growing, that horrible feeling of incompleteness was making them angrier! In swift motion, the beast lunged itself towards the biggest cluster of sparks it could see, coming at great speed, it had to work, it had to fill the VOI- _*POOF*_!

"CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP!" Yelled the driver after stopping the van so fast it made the tires screeched in response.

"Wha wha wha?" The confused mumbles of one of the passengers, a short stout man with drill shaped legs and a pencil thin guy with almost see through skin whose face seemed to be glowing reclaimed the driver. "What the hell Pistol!" Said the short guy

"I DON'T KNOW, THIS GUY JUST JUMPED IN FRONT OF THE VAN AND THEN VANISHED!" Pistol, a tall burly guy with what looked like a crab claw instead of his right arm

"I.. I thought there would be no one around the street at this hou.." the thin guy meekly responded.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU GLOW WORM!" Pistol immediately reacted causing the so called Glow worm to simply cower in fear.

"Well we gotta see what we hit, we can't afford witnesses right now" responded the short man.

"What?!"

"Yeah, yeah, Glow, go see who we hit and if he's not dead, well you know" Pistol pointed to the small knife coming out of Glow's pocket.

"But eh, Mogu!?" Glow worm pleaded to the short man, "There's Heroes patrolling around!"

"And if we hit a hero dead on, you can take the credit for offing them"

"Just Go!" Pistol pointed his open claw towards him, making Glow Worm scurry out of the back of the van.

Covering himself deeply to avoid calling attention, he looked up and down, left and right but yo no avail, there was no sign of this mysterious person, _*clink*_ "oh?" The man picked up the small rock he kicked and brought it near his face. It was a bunch of gemstones stuck together.

There had to be something precious on them, he knew natural gems weren't polished, so this rock could be worth some cash...

"HEY!" Yelled Pistol from the van "Did you find them!"

Glow worm mumbled something under his breath, they made him get out of the van, and they both loved pushing him around, so they won't get a part of this cash.

Without a second thought, he put the gem cluster on his mouth, and swallowed. His quirk made him the ultimate mule, anything he ate was transformed into light and contained within his inner light, nobody would be able to tell what he had eaten, not even his "partners", that's where the nickname "Glow worm" had come from, accompanied by his thin condition and translucent skin.

"HEY GLOW!" yelled Mogu from the other window "DID YOU FIND ANYTHING?"

"NO!" He yelled back

"THEN LET'S, oh shi-" Mogu noticed how a fine dust cloud formed around Glow worm.

Pistol's claw popped out of the window and pointed towards Glow worm, "What the he-" a booming sound and a shockwave pushed Glow worm back into the alley as he saw the van suddenly accelerate in reverse "WHA-!" Before even finishing the dust cloud condensed itself into a solid ball of sand Immobilizing the helpless man a few feet above the ground.

From the shadows he saw his greatest fears confirmed. The Sand Hero Snatch had firmly contained him while he talked to the police.

"Sorry, the rest got away, but I got the vehicle plates and description, send a patrol car to my location." the stern hero's look made him quake in fear.

#

Glow worm felt ill, he hadn't said a word ever since he got captured. Sweat had been pouring out of his forehead like crazy and he could feel his inner light flicker from dim to intense.

"Gotta admire their loyalty eh?" The other patrolman taunted. "Abandoned by his pals and still doesn't talk"

* _Loyalty?!, HA!_ *, he thought, he would have sung like a canary had this feeling not taken away his voice. No, his silence was not out of any loyalty to his "partners", he actually felt sick.

It had started after Snatch captured him. Right there he was too scared to talk, he admitted, but now he felt like he was gonna explode!. He wouldn't dare open his mouth fearing whatever was pushing inside him spilled out.

"Your buddies have been pulling heists all over the place, so Snatch is not the only hero behind them, they're going down sooner than you think"

*flash* Glow worm could see sparks of color emerge from his inner light.

"They abandoned you, I think you can get a good deal if you tell us where they're go-"

_'Deal?!'_ His inner light flashed a bright Orange, then red, then blue, green and all other colors _'No Deal!'_ Murmurs started filling the man's head, he couldn't understand a word they were saying, and that just filled him with rage, _'I want them begging!'_ Glow worm's inner light grew more intense, several colors flickered left and right, _'I want them Bloodied!'_ he could feel the restraints starting to buckle under pressure, the handcuff on his right hand popped open as his hand, his whole arm morphed, swelling into an orange green monstrosity of a limb!

"Hey!, what's going on bac-*HNNNGH*!" Before the patrolman could finish, a Giant arm broke through the back seat and held his head!

_*GRAAAAHH!*_ an unnatural screech, one made of seemingly dozens of voices filled the car as it swerved and crashed into a wall. Few witnesses claimed to have seen a misshapen creature emerge from the back, and run into the darkness..

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this new installment, as we see our Steven get to know the UA class, and we also see that there's now another problem born out of our heroe's arrival in this world.
> 
> I wanna thank my beta reader Eternos137 for his help on getting this chapter out to you guys.
> 
> Enjoy


	5. Forging, Tempering, Ready!

_The dark tunnel beneath the Beta Kindergarten extended almost like an endless hallway. Hidden among the many person shaped holes that littered the canyon, Steven and the gems had been traversing it for what it seemed like hours._

" _Huh, another one" Steven saw a small cluster of gems poking out of the earth, and in no time he proceeded to bubble and send away._

" _I thought we had got every other mutant" Connie asked while holding the flashlight._

" _Is hard to know, the cluster experiments were done in such a rush that having the exact number wasn't their first priority." Peridot said while bubbling another half buried cluster of gems._

" _Think these dudes caused the 'Warp Hiccup' Last week?" Amethyst asked with a hint of boredom._

" _I don't think so" Answered Pearl, holding a light at the end of her spear to help Connie Light the way "Whatever caused it had to be something powerful enough to drain the strength out of the whole Warp network on Earth, something like that-"_

" _Is behind this door" Garnet replied, pointing to a massive door that seemed to be blocking the way forward._

" _Finally!" said Amethyst making her joints pop, as if she had them, "Let's tear this baby open" She was immediately stopped by Garnet._

" _Steven?" Garnet pointed the young man towards the door._

" _Oh, Okay!" Steven quickly approached the door bearing the old Diamond Authority sigil, and simply put his hand on it. Immediately, the designs at the door lit up and the ancient machinery keeping it in place moved one more time. The other side of the door came to life as well, showing several ancient gem terminals, all of them built around a cylindrical facility embedded deep underground._

" _Wow, what is this place?!" Connie couldn't contain her amazement. "Do you know what this place is for Pearl?"_

" _Ohh, I'm sorry, I don't know." She accompanied Connie to the edge of the room. This place, whatever it was, had been built like an enormous spiral staircase, everything was surrounding something in the bottom center._

" _Well, this will tell us what it was made to do" said Peridot placing her hands on the terminal._

" _Heh, whatever this is they never even bothered to finish" Amethyst giggled, noticing how the building suddenly stopped, leaving smooth, polished rock above their heads._

_As Peridot dealt with the ancient gem computer, Garnet approached Steven. "It was a nice surprise to have you here, even predicting your arrival"_

" _Thanks Garnet."_

" _Have you found a place to call your own yet?"_

" _Um, not Really, I still have a lot to see, but there's always that little thought in the back of my mind, of 'What if I never find my place?', and it scares me." He turned his head to Connie, and then back to Garnet. "Do you know if?"_

" _Steven, you know that the future is not written yet," Garnet smiled back "for every possibility I can see, there might be others I couldn't predict, you of all people taught me that."_

" _I know, is just that,"_

" _Okay, This is weird!" Peridot Exclaimed from the terminal in the back…_

#

It was only the next day and yet, preparations for the Sports Festival were already in full swing. The teachers and staff were either preparing a whole section of the school to host the event, looking into Steven and Connie's 'case', or looking into finding some extra security for the Sports Festival. From what Steven and Connie have gathered, there was a Villain attack at the School's Unforseen Simulation Joint, or USJ for short, so they are beefing up security to prevent another incident from happening during the festival.

Speaking of which the Students were preparing as well. Almost all Classes of each day of the week were cut in half to allow the students a chance to get in some extra training for the Sports festival. Steven himself had just entered the cafeteria, having finished the shortened classes. Apparently students were given an opportunity to each lunch either now, or after an hour later, depending on their training.

As the Gem-hybrid walked down the cafeteria, he noticed Izuku writing on some burnt journal. "Hey Izuku!" Steven said, "You mind if I sit there?"

"Hm?" Izuku then looked up, "Oh sure, have a seat!"

After a few seconds, Steven chose to ask, "Um, Izuku, what's with the burnt book?"

"Hm?" Izuku said, "Oh this? I usually use it for notes and stuff on my classmates and their quirks. I gotta be ready for any possibility, y'know?"

"May I see it?"

Izuku thought about it for a second, Steven was a nice person, but, he was also part of the competition, he remembered All-Might's words, on how he needed to tell the World 'I AM HERE!' "On one condition" Izuku smiled, "Let me write about your quirk!"

Steven was a bit unsure but still said, "Uh… S-Sure I guess."

Izuku then opened up the journal to a blank page, "Okay, so… what's your general power? What can your quirk do?" He wrote _Steven Universe_ on the top of the page.

Steven tried to think what to say, he was advised to not simply start listing every single thing he could do (that's partially what got him into this mess in the first place) but he needed to give the boy something… "Well, I can make light constructs" he said making a small pink bubble in the palm of his hand "They can be as frail as a soap bubble or as tough as, uh, steel?" he said, trying to list as clearly as possible.

"Whoah!" Izuku touched the fist sized bubble, it was springy and solid, like a rubber ball.

"And I can undo them as well" the bubble in Izuku's hand disappeared with a *pop*, almost like an actual soap bubble.

"Whoa, that's- that's amazing, wait, wait, what about, um" the teenager looked a bit awkward "yesterday?"

"Ah…" Steven had almost forgot that Izuku saw him 'change' "Ah, the light is also part of my body" he said, increasing the mass of his right arm to almost double its regular size "And I can shape it as well" his arm shrank back to its regular size, as far as he thought, that was as good an explanation as he could muster.

"Whoa…" Izuku stated before immediately jotting down more notes, "So your Quirk is essentially light based."

"Y-Yeah," Steven stated, "But it kinda gets harder to control when… when I'm in a lot of physical or emotional stress… And my mood often dictates how my powers affect me so…" Steven then inadvertently thought of the last time this happened,he thought about, the incident…

"Are you okay?" Izuku asked as Steven's expression was one of, shame?

"Sorry, I didn't want to worry you, it's just that I have been under a bit of stress, that is all" Steven changed his outlook, leaving that expression behind. "But I think I'm no longer in that place."

"Oh, hey, can I sit here?" The young man with spiky red hair from class approached with a tray "I saw your quirk, Man it looks so cool!, looks useful and flashy."

Steven was a little taken aback by the praise, but he just answered honestly "Hehe, no I don't think is so cool"

"Are you Kidding?, It is!, I mean I love my quirk, but it's not as flashy as other heroes," another student, Kirishima gave a demonstration, his skin going from smooth to hard and jagged. "Just look!"

"Woah!" genuine amazement filled Steven "You shouldn't sell yourself short, that is really amazing!"

"Ohh, talking about flashy I see?" a blond young man approached the table with a flourish "Well let me be the one show-!"

"Heeey!" Mina Ashido immediately got in front of him and sat on the place he was about to take "May I see that bubble again?" she said with a face almost sparkling. Izuku could see Steven's expression lighten up again. He seemed to be enjoying the company of class 1-A, that was for the best.

#

Meanwhile Connie was taking advantage of the more loose schedule to train herself up some more. She was currently at one of the many School Gyms, practicing her sword play.

*HAA!* Connie's Wooden sword made the dummy tremble as she hit the key points of its anatomy.

"Hmmm" from one of the corners, Shinso made sure to keep an eye on his opposition. He had to admit that even though she was quirkless, in a one on one fight, he may not end up the victor. That is, if he didn't have his "secret weapon".

Connie, on the other hand, was going through every single instance of Pearl's training and simulations. She knew she was at a disadvantage potentially being the only student at the Sports Festival without a Quirk, but that wasn't gonna stop her.

After a good period of heavy activity, the teenager decided to take a small break.

"I must say I am impressed," Shinso announced without giving her a second look "Many others from our course would just go for obligation,"

"Uh, Thanks?" Connie felt a little uncomfortable, she only knew him from that lamentable incident a day ago, and she didn't have a good read on him.

"By the way you have an admirer,"

"A what?!" Shinso only pointed towards the entrance, where a goggled girl waved back at her

"Have fun" he said leaving Connie a bit confused. She decided that, if that girl was indeed here to see her, she should go say Hi.

"Hello?"

"Hey, wanna see my babies?"

"Your What?!"

#

Mei, her 'admirer' was a very kooky girl from the school's Support Course, a course more centered around the engineering, design and testing of what they called "Support Items" for on-site Heroes to use.

"Here we are! The cradle of MY Babies!"

The two students were now in what appeared to be a fully stocked workshop, there were workbenches with tools everywhere and even parts of incomplete armors and exosuits everywhere. Needless to say it looked pretty impressive.

"Wow…" Connie stated, impressed. She then went to a particular workbench with dozens of inventions, each in different stages of completion as well as many unopened boxes stacked here and there, "Is this your workbench?"

"Of course,these are the babies I have finished and about to show in the Sports Festival."

"Wait, you can use those?" Connie asked looking at the huge variety of gadgets on display, she could even see a jetpack for crying out loud!

"Well, they make an exception with us, Support course groups, however you can ask for permission to use a support item in advance, provided that you have one" she smiled.

"I think I get what you're saying but, eh, why tell me all this?"

"Well," Mei put her hands in her back "You're new, and… well, you're…"

"I get it" Connie answered a bit ticked off.

"No, no, I didn't mean to insult you, and yes I have a reason." Mei lowered her head for a second "I WANT YOU TO TELL ME ABOUT YOUR BABY!" She sprung her head so fast with an expression of pure glee.

"Wha…?" Connie was confused by this statement…

"I saw Power Loader working on a weird support item from a few days back," Mei started recounting her experiences "It was a peculiar pink sword, and even though it seemed simply a blade, its properties are unlike anything we have so far!"

"A-ah-!" after the examination before entering school, she remembered having given her sword to the school for safekeeping. She should have expected them to investigate the sword, like with the rest of their stuff, but she didn't expect a student to take such a keen interest. Shamelessly at that!

"The blade can keep cutting through hard objects without losing its edge, despite its size and appearance, it's surprisingly light, and besides that, the material it's made out of, there's nothing we can compare it with!" Mei was extremely excited citing the features of her sword.

"Did... Did Power Loader tell you it was mine?" Connie asked in confusion.

Mei looked a bit embarrassed "Not exactly…" she scratched the back of her head, "I helped him run a couple tests on the blade, and after looking at the results he mumbled something about how he should have 'asked the new girl for more information,' and, I saw that you joined school just yesterday, soooo, please?" Mei's face was beaming with joy.

Connie was in a bit of a hard spot, she could tell Mei that the material the sword was made of, the mysterious crystalline alloy, was something they'd never find here, due to this world being free from gem influence. She could tell her that this sword was made by an extraterrestrial individual to fight against an evil empire in another galaxy far far away, but she promised to not talk about "aliens" and other dimensions to any of the other students, so…

"It was made by a Friend of mine, she is an accomplished Blacksmith, specialized in creating support items for a particular group of heroes, however, she's a bit of a hermit, and keeps the secret of her craft to herself, you know, for competitive advantage."

"Re-Really?" Connie could tell that Mei wasn't a 100% on board with that explanation. "Bu-but you gotta know something at least?"

"Ohmm, a bit, but it is not like I could replicate her work here, I just know how to use it" she laughed awkwardly, "I'm really good at swordplay is all!"

"Awww…" Mei pouted "that's so unfair, She discovered a new material so incredible, and- and…!" Mei sighed. "Well then, Can I interest you in one of MY babies to use at the Festival?!" like a spring she went back to happy and excited all of a sudden.

"Wait, Really?!"

"Well, I'm pretty sure they're not gonna approve of you using that or any other sword in the competition, but I have a few alternatives among my babies!" not losing a second the girl walked to one of the boxes and started tossing out invention after invention to the workbench. "Besides, if you make it far in the festival, I want people to know that you had the Support of one of My Babies!"

"Uh... " Connie then noticed a long object on the workbench, it looked like a pole or something, but it had a handle similar to a sword, it was also white but with bits of black as well. "What's this?" She asked.

"Oh? Ah yes, I call it the Brawl Baton, is a simple but powerful tool for self-defense and rescue!" she quickly grabbed the small baton like object and with the twist of a button. *TWIP* "It extends to almost double its length with such force that the hit itself may immobilize the target, not only that, with its tungsten alloy is one of the most resistant things you could use, and finally" another twist of the button, a small blade extended from the sides, "not so good for combat purposes, this blade is convenient enough to cut through bindings and other obstacles!"

"Wow, this looks,great! can I?"

"Of course!" Mei nodded, as Connie swung the baton around. "And if you can tell us a bit more about your sword, please come around, I really want to know!"

Connie thought about that, then she said, "Sure… I think I can even help with that gadget…"

While the two kept chatting, neither of them noticed something falling from one of the boxes that Mei had laying around her work station.

A pair of gemstones fell and got lost within the messy room, one of them, a bright green triangular cut gemstone and the other, a small cluster of gems…

#

In the UA Teachers lounge, the plans for the upcoming event were being put in motion.

"Okay, I think this year I will be taking charge of the Third Year participants event. Think you can take care of the first years Ms. Nemuri?" Principal Nedzu asked the R rated hero.

"Leave it to me!" said Midnight.

"Oh, Snipe" Nedzu said, addressing the masked hero as he entered the office.

"I heard you'd be here," he said carrying a form, "I was gonna file this support item request anyway."

"Oh, is this for the new Student?" the cowboy nodded, prompting the principal to continue, "I know it's only been a day, but stil, how is she doing so far?"

"She's a smart girl, very dedicated and seems to be advanced in many school subjects, I also have seen her train for the festival, I think she'd do really well in the sports festival despite not having a Quirk," he answered.

"In that regard, Aizawa, have your thoughts on the new Student in class 1-A changed?"

The serious hero simply responded, "Steven is currently trying to fit in with the class, while I don't doubt he was taught how to use his quirk, he still seems to be scared of it."

"Connie's reaction during the test was similar regarding Steven." Midnight interjected, "her calling up to him made him increase his performance dramatically, so it seems that she knows what he's capable of at the very least."

"I see," the principal said, "Well then-" the doors flew open as the number one hero made his way into the office wearing a yellow business suit. "Ah, Toshinori, right on 15 minutes later I see,"

"Ha-Ha-Ha, I'm sorry, I was giving a few small advices for the Students on the *COF*," Suddenly, All-Might gave out a great violent and bloody cough, his body emitted a great poof of vapor. Then in that moment, said body was now completely different. It was far less muscular, almost frail, and his face looked almost completely withered, giving the appearance of a mere skeleton with skin over it.

"You overexerted yourself again, didn't you?" Nezu asked, his cheerful tone unchanged.

"*cough* I'm sorry." He said in a more subdued tone, unlike the larger than life persona he usually gave himself.

"Speaking of, do you have an opinion on our Exchange student?"

"I, I haven't had the opportunity to work with them all that much. I could tell the boy Steven was paying attention to what I said. But I haven't had the opportunity to put them in an exercise yet." Toshinori said. "He did however looked extremely interested on participating on the Sports Festival today"

"Hm?" Aizawa raised an eyebrow to that comment, "Now that you mention it, he wasn't that interested the day before. In fact if we take seriously their goal to find his family 'from another dimension' then he was simply taking our courses to make time."

"My guess would be that both of them decided to use the sports festival for their own ends, and If their goal is indeed the same, what better way to scream 'I'm Here!' than in our Sports Festival?" the mouse man said while scratching his nonexistent chin. "With how many interesting people will be there, I am almost disappointed at not getting to host this one..." The whole host of heroes considered the principal words, this was probably gonna be a Festival far from usual.

#

Steven was training for the Sports Festival. Currently at the Unforeseen Simulation Joint, also known as the USJ. On the suggestion of Mina he accepted the invitation to join their little sparring group.

What he didn't expect was just how big the USJ really was,there were dozens of smaller areas, each meant to simulate a separate disaster. An earthquake, a wildfire, a landslide, etc!

"Wow, so this is the USJ they mentioned in the news?" Steven asked.

"Hehehe, That's right! Professor Aizawa said we could use it to train!" Ochako answered. "I think if we go to the ruins zone, we'll have enough to work with"

"To work with what?"

"To work a way to surprise the audience of course, To make our Qui-!" Aoyama's discourse was immediately interrupted by the pink girl who invited him.

"To practice our Quirks silly!" she laughed "I wanna see your quirk in BIG!" Steven remembered how excited she looked when he showed them his pink bubble earlier. "Heh. Sure…" he then followed the three in one of the smaller domes inside this much larger dome. In under a minute, the four were in the Ruins Zone. It certainly looked like an earthquake had hit a city district. Steven was shocked at what he was seeing.

"Whoa…" he said, "This is unreal."

"Okay" Uraraka Started "how about a bit of target practice?" without waiting any further, Steven saw the girl touch different pieces of debris. As soon as she did that, the rocks started floating, as if no longer affected by gravity!

"My turn!" Mina's hands started secreeting globs of a viscous liquid. "One, Two, Three!" and with a swift movement the liquid flew from her hands and into the floating debris, just as Uraraka placed her fingertips together and called out.

"Release!" This caused the debris to fall. And yet Mina was able to hit each of them, Steven was in awe as he saw the rocks dissolve in contact with Mina's quirk before touching the ground. The very few not hit by Mina's quirk, were pulverized by a bright blue beam coming out of the young Aoyama Yuga's midriff.

"ha" the young man couldn't help but pose as if part of a performance, only to be hit with a minuscule rock that he missed "ow!"

Steven looked awkwardly at this. Then Uraraka began to levitate a few more stones, "Okay, Steven! Your turn!"

"Okay!" Steven stated, then signaled Mina and Aoyama to move away from him.

"Release!"

A hail of rocks from various sizes came crashing down on top of Steven, who without fail manifested a pink force field around him like a bubble.

"Wow" Mina saw how the debris harmlessly bounced away "Nice Job!" the pink girl gave him a thumbs up.

"Eh, Steven, How resistant is this bubble?" Uraraka asked.

"Pretty durable I guess, why?"

"well, I just thought about this, but, what if we tried to break it?" she asked "We'll stop the moment you say, but I think it would be a good way to practice since your quirk is more defense oriented."

"Hmm…" Steven thought of it for a second, "W-Well my quirk can be used for both defence AND offence, but..." His mind went back to the days he spent training with Jasper. "But I think I can practice my defense"

"You sure?" Mina said. Steven nodded

"I'll just defend, so give it your all!" Steven's smile reassured his classmates.

"Hya!" the globs of Mina's most potent acid smashed against his bubble only to harmlessly slide off. "Wait what?" Steven shrugged.

"Release!" Uraraka yelled as a new rain of debris of different sizes impacted against the bubble.

"Ow, this is getting a bit inten-" *CHRASH* a column fell on top of the bubble, even making a few spider cracks "WOAH!"

"Hehe, the higher I send something, the stronger the impact is when it comes down *URP*" Uraraka covered her mouth as a bout of dizziness overcame her.

"Witness, my Beautiful sparkle!" Aoyama sent a concentrated beam pointed right to the crack in Steven's bubble, making it way bigger.

"Okay!" Steven said, feeling pumped, "You're going all out, just keep it up!"

"Well then" Steven saw Mina holding something in both hands "Here I GO!" she tossed a huge, solid glob of acid like it was a snowball to his damaged bubble.

Steven wanted to answer the challenge, he was starting to like this small distraction, he prepared for impact and at the last moment, he hesitated *CRACK* like a wall of glass, the bubble shattered into non existence, and Steven dropped to the floor to evade the deadly acid ball.

"Steven!" Mina and Ochako immediately went to help the young man "Are you okay?" asked the pink girl.

"Yes, don't worry I just had a little problem, that's all."

"You were trying to do something, don't you?" Aoyama inquired, Steven had to give credit to the blond kid. For as vain as he seemed to look like, he was pretty observant.

"Yes, sorry, I just hesitated for a dumb reason…" He had tried to summon Rose's shield. But, now that he thought of it, he hadn't summoned it ever since he lost control, months away. "I, I want to ask for your help, this will be good training I swear."

"What, do you want to do?" Asked Ochako.

"The same we were doing a few moments ago, but this time I won't encase myself in a bubble"

"Um, don't you think it will be a bit dangerous Steven?" Mina added.

"We're here to push ourselves, right?"

"I see your desire to challenge yourself Steven. I too wish to shine among my peers, I accept!"

Seeing Aoyama's response to the challenge, Uraraka too responded in kind, by going around Steven and started touching and lifting huge pieces of the ruined buildings in the air "Then get ready Steven…!"

"Yes!" Steven kept an eye to his 3 sparring partners, while he thought to himself 'This is it, I am gonna forge my own path.' The moment Uraraka released the objects above his head they would all start. 'I… still don't know how to feel about you, mom,' Steven clenched his fist in anticipation 'You made mistakes that costed a lot of people their lives, but at the same time you spent most of your life trying to correct them' a small spark of pink could be seen shining from Steven's midriff, Aoyama even lifted an eyebrow to that 'And… you gave me a lot, both good and bad...'

Uraraka, feeling the building tension, brought her hands together "RELEASE!" the whole slew of floating debris came crashing down as fast as gravity pulled them. Steven waited and to the last moment *CRASH*

Then, the concrete and debris broke apart as Steven held his hand up, a few centimeters above it floated an ethereal half bubble that repelled the attack '... But now… it's time I make my own identity.' without a second to spare Aoyama shot another Laser to Steven's location, to which the boy jumped back manifesting another half bubble, though this time it looked denser, less translucent than that of a few minutes ago. The new barrier deflected the beam up to the skies. 'To forge my own shield!'

"Don't forget about me Steven!" Mina yelled throwing her distinctive acid to the fray, to which Steven responded by making a new round barrier to his right stopping Mina's attack from reaching him at all, this one felt even denser than the one that blocked Aoyama's laser, and if you looked at it from the right angle, you'd be able to see hundreds of small hexagons forming the shape together...

'Stronger…' Steven thought as he blocked another laser barrage from Aoyama, 'To protect everyone I love!' Ochako noticed that everytime Steven made that shield again there was a difference from the last, even now the intensity of the pink colors of the barrier was varying, and some designs were kinda coming to light?

"Release!" Once more, Ochako's rain of debris came crashing down, however this time Steven jumped to meet the obstacle head on! "Wha!?" With a swift movement he materialized the shield one more time, as he collided with her attack, crushing the debris against his unbreakable barrier, bashing the debris head on.

'This is MY shield!' Steven thought as he landed back into the ground, his right hand now sporting what looked like a dark pink, round shield, with a softer pink outer edge and a soft pink, five pointed star extending from the center to the edges.

"Woah, That is so cool!" Mina exclaimed.

Steven himself was internally agreeing with her, gone was the Rose motif of his mother's old shield and in its place was something truly different, something that just felt like… him!

"Yeah… Yeah it is…" Steven said in awe.

"You gotta name it!" Added Mina

"What?"

"You know, all heroes have this cool 'signature move,' so you gotta make this shield yours!"

"Oh. A 'Signature move' huh? Well, this shield isn't really a move, it's just the kind of weapon I'm used to using," Steven admitted.

"Oh what a beautiful session of training this is, I can feel we have so much in common" Aoyama Waltzed towards Steven, with him and both girls noticing something wrong immediately.

"Aoyama, you're bleeding!"

"Huh?" the blond teenager put his hand to his face and saw blood, "Ehhh!" one of the rocks Steven punched away in his last exercise might have hit him without anyone noticing. He immediately started screaming a high pitched wail, saying, "My face! MY FACE! IT'S DAMAGED!"

"W-Wait, let me fix it!" Steven stated in a slight panic. Then, like a reflex, he licked the tip of his thumb and smeared it on Aoyama's small face cut.

"Steven, what are you doing!?" Ochako stated in a panic herself, "That's gonna get infec-huh?" Suddenly the group saw that the spot where Aoyama's wound was began to glow faintly.

"Woah!" Mina saw how a small shower of sparkles shined as the cut closed up into nothingness, Immediately all 3 of them brought their now widened eyes back to Steven who could only smile awkwardly.

"Heh-heh-heh... I-I guess I forgot to tell you I have healing spit?"

From the depths of Ruin Zone, in the Unforeseen Simulation Joint, a huge "WHAAAAAAAAAAAA-!?" could be heard for several yards…

#

And so, the days passed, Steven continued training. With his class, with Connie, on his own. They were determined to shine a light that the Gems could see wherever they were. And in the blink of an eye, the Day of the Festival had arrived.

"Ready for the Festival Izuku!" Steven saluted his classmate as the School came into view.

"Yes!" Izuku answered with a smile. He could see how dozens of students in sports uniforms converged on the way to school. He looked at his own new uniform. Apparently, they were making one that would be tailor made for his current height and weight and it was meant to be durable as well.

He then smiled at Connie who smirked right back. "Well, let's not keep them waiting!" Connie said before running inside.


	6. Run! - the First Test

Steven, along with all of his classmates, lied within the waiting room, some of them stretched predicting an arduous competition, others did whatever they could to keep themselves calm.

"Man…" Mina said aloud randomly as she looked down at her uniform, "I was hoping I could wear my costume…"

"Well, look at it this way," said Ojiro, "This means that everyone is gonna be in their gym uniforms. So, that's gotta keep things fair right?"

"He-he" Steven laughed at his current situation, after adjusting his earphones his mind went straight to someone he'd love to see him participate in the Festival. 'I always wondered how School was for you dad.' pressing the play button on his phone, the lyrics of 'Like a Comet' by Greg Universe started to fill his ears. Losing himself to the music, he began to think further about his father's childhood. He initially saw Greg's early life as a big letdown, but he eventually accepted his father for who he was now, especially given how Greg outright refused to act like a coward anymore, taking a more direct approach to the Crystal Gems' shenanigans as opposed to backing out of uncertainty.

On the next seat, the hero apprentice and music enthusiast, Jiro Kyoka, took a small look at the new student bobbing his head to the Rhythm. "Catchy tune?" she asked him.

"Hm?" Steven looked up at Jiro, a young girl with a generic figure and special, cable-like earlobes that were key to her quirk. "Oh, yeah, this is a song my dad used to sing to me when I was little. He met my mom when he was singing it at a concert."

"Your father's a musician?"

"Yeah, he never made it big, but he never really stopped loving music. He just kept writing more songs and a lot of them are really cool," Steven then held out the phone for her, "Here, take a listen!"

Jiro put on the earbuds as Steven restarted the song, the girl started listening to the Rock Ballad, about how the life of a rock star wasn't easy, she couldn't help but wonder how much it could mirror the life of some Heroes. "Wow," she said, "This is really catchy."

"Hey, what are you listening to?" a young blond with a dark streak in his hair asked them. Steven knew him as Denki Kaminari.

"Oh is just a song my dad wrote when he was young."

"Oh, can I?" Jiro handed one of the earbuds to Kaminari who immediately took a liking to it "Ohh, this is Good! I heard you said he never made it big, Why?"

"Eh, he always told me it was either this, or Mom, and I guess he just listened to his heart."

"Oooh, I bet she was so amazing for him to stop his career." as Kaminari mentioned it, he noticed Steven's mood immediately turned from happy to melancholic. "O-Oh I didn't mean-!"

Just as Jiro was about to slap him for being so rude, Steven then said, "No, no, don't worry, Is just that, I never met her in person." Both teenagers suddenly looked at him in shock and concern...

Fortunately for Steven, Iida quickly entered the door cutting the gloomy atmosphere, calling out, "Everyone, get your game faces on! We're entering the arena soon!"

At that point many of the student's reacted differently. For example, an invisible girl, Tohru Hagakure was twitching around as if impatient or simply excited, while the short, purple haired kid, whose name Steven now knew to be Minorou Mineta, began to swipe at his open hand and chant in his signature lisp, "Swallow your fear. Swallow your fear. Swallow your fear…" before miming the very act.

"Midoriya" Steven saw the young man approaching Izuku. His white and red hair as well as the burn scar over his left eye made him know it was Shoto Todoroki, the, according to everyone else in class, Ace of the whole group.

"Todoroki, W-What is it?" Izuku responded, everyone else immediately planted their eyes in the conversation.

"It's clear to see that from an objective point of view, I'm clearly stronger than you" Izuku was shocked at how he made such a statement, but then silently nodded before he continued, "However, you've got All-Might in your corner, helping you out." Izuku's face was shocked. Steven himself was curious. He may have only been in this world for a few days, but he easily learned of All-Might's reputation and status as the Number 1 hero.

"I…"

"I'm not here to pry about whatever is going on between you two…" Todoroki said, continuing, "But just know one thing. I am GOING to beat you."

This was a bit of a shock to Izuku as Shoto was essentially calling him out directly and openly.

"H-Hey…" Steven said standing up, "You don't need to be like that. I mean- "

"We didn't come here to make friends" Todoroki interrupted planting his sight squarely on Steven, "Your transference to this school, your participation in this event, all of them are extremely irregular, yet you are here for any reason." his cold but challenging demeanor didn't go unnoticed by Steven "If you didn't come here to compete, then stay away." Todoroki added.

Before Steven could answer Izuku Interjected "You're right." without averting his look from the teenager he continued "I don't know why you had to tell me you'd beat me, of course you're better than me, you are maybe the one with the most potential in this Hero course," He looked at Steven when adding "But, the other courses are also coming at us with everything they got," Steven couldn't help but think about his plan with Connie, Of course it would be everyone for themselves, even Connie would face him with all of her strength, "So… We're all gonna have to fight to stand out…" He then looked directly at Todoroki, "And _I'll_ be aiming for the top too."

Steven was in awe of Midoriya's statement as he said it with a serious, determined look on his face, he would not mock their efforts by treating this like a game. If everyone is aiming for the top, then he can't lag behind!

#

"Welcome back to the UA Sports festival!" The voice of present Mic blasted through the stadium speakers making the crowd cheer. Steven could not think of an audience bigger than the one outside waiting to see them perform. "Where up and coming Heroes leave everything on the field as they fight to attain world famous celebrity recognition! This first group are no strangers to the spotlight, you may know them for withstanding a villain attack. Plus I heard they recently got a new, last-minute student. Give it up for Class 1-A!"

"Ahh, I hadn't seen so many people in one Place!" Mina exclaimed as she looked around.

"Wow, It is a big audience!" Steven answered with a smile.

"I certainly hope we are still able to give it our all with all these eyes watching our performance," Iida stated in response, noting that some of them, mainly Izuku, looked QUITE nervous at the audience all around them.

"Are you not nervous Steven?" Denki asked after seeing Steven's smile and somewhat calm walk.

"Of course I am!" He said not losing his smile even a little, making Denki just frown in disbelief. "Hey, let's just say it is not the first time I perform in front of a big crowd. Son of a musician, remember?"

"Present Mic sure talked us up a lot eh?" Kirishima said while walking along the rest of the class "kinda makes me nervous… How about you Bakugo?" he asked the young man walking in front of him.

"I'm not worried," he said with an increasing smirk, "All this attention just makes me wanna win even more!"

Present Mic immediately continued the announcement, presenting the 1-B class. Steven could see how they didn't feel as loved by the audience as the class he was in. Not losing any more time either, the commentating hero announced the groups 1-C, D and E, the General Course, and the remaining groups of the Support and Business Courses.

"How many of you think we're just here to make the hero courses look better?" said one bored looking student among the group of General Course students.

"Yeah, I don't know why we're bothering at all..." another student, a girl, said looking at Connie, who, to deal with her nerves, kept silent while fiddling with her 'Brawler Baton', courtesy of Mei.

"Is not like we'll make it far either" the boy added once more, Connie almost felt that last barb.

"Then, at least I'll try to see how far I can get" she announced to her two classmates as she walked past them, not making much of a deal of their reaction, or Shinso's deep look towards her.

All the groups stopped in front of a podium where a familiar face was looking at them, whipping out her signature riding crop. "Now the introductory speech!" announced the R-Rated Hero, Midnight.

A few members of the audience were in awe of her body and seductive nature. Not to mention her sexualized Hero outfit.

The student's however, had more MIXED reactions. "Uh…" Kirishima said, blushing slightly from embarrassment "Someone should REALLY talk to Ms. Midnight about what she's wearing."

"Yeah," Steven added, also blushing for the same reason, "An outfit like that DEFINITELY needs to come with a warning."

"Is that really appropriate to wear for a high school game…?" Tokoyami asked, more concerned than embarrassed.

However Kaminari was instead, just staring at her. And Mineta actually gritted his teeth and gave a thumbs up to what he was seeing…!

"SILENCE EVERYONE" Midnight commanded with a whip of her riding crop, "And now for the Student pledge we have Katsuki Bakugo!" Everyone in Steven's class went silent, he even heard another student pointing that Bakugo got the highest score in the entrance exam.

Slowly, Bakugo got up to the podium and stood in front of the mic that was standing there. Everyone held their breath, nervous at what he was going to say, especially Izuku. Then he spoke…

"I just wanna say… I'm gonna win."

At that point, almost every 1-A Student, even Steven himself, all had the same mutual thought:

_**I** _ **KNEW** _**HE'D SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAAAAAT!** _

Then, in no time flat, all of the other students were booing him, booing the students of class 1-A!

"Why would you be so disrespectful!" Iida yelled at Bakugo, "You're supposed to be representing all of us!"

Bakugo simply turned around and gave a thumb down at his peers "Pfft, not my fault you're all just stepping stones in my path to victory."

Everyone was either ashamed, or incensed, depending on which class they were in. The silver haired guy from Class 1-B who was currently near Connie, outright yelled, "I'm gonna CRUSH this overconfident jerk!" He clenched his fist as he continued his rant, "I CAN'T WAIT TO KNOCK HIM DOWN TO SIZE!"

Needless to say, the 1-A students did not appreciate having a target on their backs so early in the Festival…

Midnight stopped the students' boos and complaints to show a screen just behind her. "Well. It's time to know what will be our first event!" Just like a slot machine, the screen iterated over dozens and dozens of possible events, every student felt the tension increase with every passing second, "This is where you'll start feeling the pain!" Then the screen finally stopped at the first event.

*Obstacle Race*

"All of the competing classes will run a four kilometer Obstacle Course on the outside of the stadium. As long as you remain on the track, you're able to do whatever your heart desires!" After another round of applause, she then demands the students to take starting positions as the starting line. Every student turned towards a narrow archway, as the final count for the event began.

*3*

Connie saw her classmates getting in position, there were quite a number of competitors in this race, quite a number for that small archway as well...

*2*

Steven flexed his legs, he was sure that there was gonna be more than simple obstacles in this race, besides, after Bakugo's little speech, every class would be gunning against them, that's for sure…

*1*

Izuku was nervous, it had been months since he got All Might's quirk, One For All, and he still lacked the necessary control to use it like his classmates. He had to be careful, to only use it if absolutely necessary, however All Might's request kept sounding deep in his hearth. He will tell the world "I AM HERE!".

*GO!*

The last set of lights on the Archway turned green and the enormous group of Students ran like their lives depended on it. Steven was no exception, he too ran as much as he could until they arrived at the exit.

However there was already a problem on their way out of the stadium and onto the track...

"So, What is the first great obstacle our students will face?" Present Mic asked Professor Aizawa.

"The Door," he answered with a hint of boredom. And he was right; the exit passage was deliberately made to be narrow and in a matter of the first few seconds, most of the students were cramped inside literally trapped by one another, many smooshed in place! "Although it seems that a few of them took notice of that detail…" Connie, on the other hand smiled, what she thought would happen was occurring at this exact moment. Not losing even a second, the girl immediately approached the gathered crowd and…

"Ow," a student yelled as he felt his head used as a step.

"Hey!" another exclaimed a bit forward "Watch it!" people turned their heads up to see a girl run on top of their heads with great agility.

"Sorry!" Connie yelled without stopping as she made her way through half the people cluttering the exit.

Steven, on the other side, was currently trying to push his way through the same narrow exit, along with Izuku, Bakugo, and everyone else. He had to admit, while this was supposed to be a ruthless competition, he was having fun. That was, until…

*FLASH*

A quick wave of cold immobilized his feet, along with several others not having been prepared for it. "What?!" The ground beneath them was now covered in a layer of ice! That had to have been Todoroki's attack, given that most people in his class were able to avoid it.

"Apologies," Shoto said without even turning around as he simply kept sprinting like nothing happened.

"Steven!" Connie yelled after passing a few inches above his head. "Don't Lag behind!" she continued running, jumping out of the exit, alongside Momo, Ojiro, Bakugo and others.

"Heh, I guess you're right… I gotta move!" He then summoned a single pink pubble surrounding him. Not only did it knock a few others aside, but the ice stopping his feet shattered, crushed against the impervious forcefield, and Steven ran out the iced corridor, faster than the rest.

Others though, like Izuku were having trouble walking, let alone running over the slippery ice. Todoroki on the other hand, was shocked that so many students were finding their way out of his icy trap so soon.

Suddenly, as he was turning around he was met by one student in particular. Mineta was using his quirk of pulling sticky balls from his head and using them as bounce pads to move quickly through the ice! "HA! He yelled when he jumped high enough in the air, "You think you're so clever, but I've outsmarted you! How pathetic Todoroki! Now eat this! My special attack - OOF!" Mineta couldn't finish what he had planned as he was immediately smacked down by a Robot.

"Eh?" Connie saw some of the students stop as the voice of Present Mic announced.

"And our Students have arrived at the first obstacle, the dreaded Robot Inferno!" The ground shook as robots of all sizes, including a group of Colossal machines blocked the track. "They are back from the entrance exam, and looking for vengeance!"

Steven was shocked, THIS was what the students had to face in the Practical Test!?

Connie immediately unsheathed her baton without extending it, while starting to plan in her head, 'Okay, the big ones are gonna be a problem, but we don't really need to fight them just, just have to find an opening and…'

"Hmm, so this is what the rest had to face huh?" Todoroki, not willing to lose his advantage approached one of the biggest robots, preparing to use his quirk, "I wish they had brought something more difficult, after all, my dear old dad is watching." With a simple swipe of his hand, a gigantic column of ice rose from the ground and collided with the colossus, freezing it in place the moment it tried to attack Todoroki.

"Wow," Connie couldn't help but gasp at the display of power from the young man, who immediately resumed running.

"Quickly, run below it," She heard some students yell but she was sure Todoroki wouldn't have made a path for the rest of them.

Sure enough, the very robot he froze slowly began to tip forward and fall, making a bigger roadblock for the ones that stayed.

*Hero sighted* " Connie immediately heard. One of the 3 pointer robots had taken advantage of her loss of concentration to sneak next to her and was about to make her pay for it, when all of a sudden...

*Crash!* A punch enveloped in a pink, spiked bubble, crushed the machine's menacing red eye, leaving it to uselessly fall to the ground.

"Hey Connie," Connie turned around and saw Steven, smiling playfully at her, "Let's not lag behind!" Steven then manifested his new shield, surprising her with the new design, and threw it directly towards another giant robot, the machine tried intercepting the pink frisbee with its enormous punch only for it to cut through it as if it was nothing, and keep going until the machine's upper body completely slid off!

This managed to shock several of the students. As he began to make his way through to the other side of the Robot Inferno.

"Okay, he didn't do that on the practice!" mumbled Mina after seeing Steven cross with relative ease.

Immediately other Students started to find ways around the giant robots. Students like Bakugo, Sero am Tokoyami made use of their Quirks to fly over them, Connie just nodded and made her way forward, It was her turn to run!

#

"And the Students continue to forward!" said Present Mic in his characteristic high spirits as he saw the young heroes carve a path through the robot inferno. "Seems like your class is taking the lead eh Eraser?"

"Of course," Aizawa stated as Mina's acid made short work of any robot that dared cross her path, while Ochako simply sent the machines flying and then dropped them to their doom. "They have already experienced real danger and moved forward without hesitation." His eyes went straight towards the other exchange student participating in the race "They know their current limitations and yet they push themselves beyond them" Connie evaded the attacks of the robots with such grace and agility, "I am convinced, however, that they're not the only ones who've have seen real combat though"

"Wow, that Student from the general course shows no signs of Stopping!" present Mic announced to the audience as Connie brought a 2 pointer down with a well placed baton hit. The murmurs and reactions among the audience didn't wait in the least.

"I knew she wasn't gonna be stopped by the robots, still I would like to meet whoever taught her," the homeroom teacher Snipe stated adamantly from the teacher's seat.

Meanwhile, Izuku was seeing all of this and was in awe, but still kept a serious outlook on it, Connie had no quirk, and yet she had moved forward, he needed to stop doubting himself and press on! "Uh?!" a piece of metal lay in front of him "Must have fallen from the Zero pointer Todoroki destroyed!" Izuku quickly picked it up, "That Connie girl made great use of the tool she has. So if I am not gonna use One For All yet, then I'll need to follow her example!" Suddenly he looked to his right and saw that one of the robots was about to punch him. Thinking fast, he used the metal plating he had as a blunt object and bashed at the bot, destroying one of its arms in the process!

As Connie got close to the Zero pointer area, powerful booms filled the area "What the?" One by one, the giant robots fell to the ground, a single look behind revealed a girl pointing a Cannon towards the rest of the obstacles. "Wow, I-I guess that takes care of that!" she said as Momo Yaoyorozu exclaimed what a piece of cake that was.

#

Eventually more and more students began to make it pass the first obstacle of this Obstacle Course. Steven looked behind him and saw the LARGE number of students already catching up. Nervous, he faced forward again, only to stop in his tracks before the next obstacle.

"It… can't be!" Steven exclaimed upon the sight.

"Seems they have arrived at obstacle Number 2!" Present Mic yelled with a bit of a sadistic glee as a humongous chasm extended in front of Steven. "If they make a spill, they're out! If they wanna pass the test they'll have to get creative! It's 'THE FALL'!" Other Students stopped themselves before the obstacle as well.

"Okay… this is insane!" Steven looked how the chasm was filled with ropes and several smaller plateaus

"Yeah," Uraraka, who was next to him, stated in agreement, "When did they even have time to make all of this?"

Suddenly, the frog-like girl Tsuyu 'Tsu' Asui stepped forward. "Huh? Tsu?" Mina, who was next to Uraraka, said in confusion, "What are you doing?"

Then, without even turning to respond, Tsu leaped forward by a great deal and grabbed at the rope. Then she crawled right over it, ribbitting every now and then, much to the remaining three's surprise!

"Heh-Heh… This is it. This is my chance to show off what I can do…!" a pink haired girl, decked head to toe in gadgets made her entrance right next to them, "My Support Items are gonna steal the spotlight from these wannabe heroes!" She then yelled out in a flourish, "EVERYONE! OBSERVE WHAT MY BRILLIANT INVENTIONS ARE CAPABLE OF!" In a show of great ability, and technology, Mei used her support items to cross almost half the gap in a single bound!, steel cables pulled her forward, while her special boots allowed her to effortlessly glide up.

"Wow, so that's the Support Course" Steven said with a smile, "Okay, enough surprises... See you on the other side!" Steven smiled towards his classmates as he said that latter remark. Then with a slight impulse, he ran forward and leaped! What shocked everyone was that he jumped much higher than what his body would suggest. Several meters! Then, in further surprise, he began to fall SLOWLY, essentially gliding forward, letting him cross a considerable number of the plateaus over the chasm!

"Okay, I'm pretty sure that Steven is hiding like 90% of what he can do!" pouted Mina at that display before starting to cross herself.

Connie, on her part, just held dearly to one of the cables as she made her way across, not unlike young Izuku at the moment. Meanwhile, at the end of the Obstacle, Todoroki had just finished crossing all the way through, having used his quirk to freeze the ropes and slid across each one. Bakugo however, wasn't that far behind as he was using his own explosion quirk to blast his way forward through the air at great distances, next was Steven, who was able to cut a lot of track thanks to his jumping.

"And it Looks like the competition is going Reaaally close!" Present Mic practically screamed as the students climbed the stairs away from 'The Fall,' announcing with it everyone's places "In First place we have Shoto Todoroki! followed very closely by 1-A's Katsuki Bakugo, and oh look! Our newest student, Steven Universe, is cutting it so close that I can't tell how this will end. Will our trio of leads keep their advantage all the way to the end?"

Todoroki stopped when he saw the track transform into a long dirt road. But what really caught his eye were the numerous oddly colored spots everywhere. They were faintly darker in color…

Then, Present Mic spoke up again, "They'd better tread carefully… YOU'RE STEPPING ONTO A MINEFIELD!" Todoroki observed the area before him as Present Mic continued his explanation, "If you look carefully, you can see where each of the bombs are buried, so keep your eyes on the ground folks! … By the way, those landmines were designed specifically with the games in mind, so while they ARE loud and flashy, they're not really that powerful… JUST ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU WET YOUR PANTS!" Aizawa, who was in the MC booth with him, merely facepalmed this exaggeration of enthusiasm.

Todoroki slowed his pace "The mines themselves are not hard to see, but they're easy to miss if you try to rush through..." he said as, sure enough, a loud *BOOOM* and a plume of pink smoke ignited mere meters behind him.

"Woah, they weren't kidding, they are loud!" Todoroki's eyes widened when he noticed a pink force field emerge from the plume. Steven was getting awfully close for his liking. The young man vanished his shield and proceeded carefully.

"YOU ICY-HOT BASTARD!"

However before Todoroki could move even further, Bakugo descended using his blasts to lift himself above the minefield while challenging Todoroki for the first place spot, shocking Steven, who was observing this whole spectacle.

*BOOM*

Further explosions started filling the air as more students made it to the minefield. Even faster students like Iida were forced to lower their speed, as the explosions always ended up catching up to them.

"This, this is fine!" said Steven maintaining a constant pace "may not get to first place, but-" *BOOOM* another explosion, this one so big that Steven could feel the ground shaking beneath his feet made him look back.

"Ohh! What is that!" he heard the students behind claim until he saw a figure rocket out of the smoke "I-Izuku!" mumbled Steven as the young man flew over his head, overtaking his place in mere seconds!.

" _Hey Steven!" Connie ran towards him as they were finishing another day of school._

" _Hey Connie, Long day?"_

" _Hehe, I think so, maybe I overdid it with my training today, But I was just so moved!"_

" _Really?"_

" _I kinda just found out about the School motto, and that really pushed me forward!"_

" _The school motto?..."_

Izuku flew through the sky, to the surprise of everyone, clearing most of the minefield in one fell swoop!

" _Yes, because 'a Hero will always find a way for justice to be served'!" Connie said with a smile, "Even then you have to go beyond!, Plus Ultra!"_

Connie's words resonated in Steven's mind as Izuku slammed the piece of metal he flew on the ground triggering an explosion. "I-I was gonna be satisfied with third place," Steven clenched his fists, "But… Everyone is giving it their all, and I was gonna be satisfied with that?" very close by, Iida noticed that Steven's skin started shining a bright pink, "Connie's right… I've got to go further… go beyond..." Steven mumbled those words as the world slowed down around him "PLUS ULTRA!" the young man practically vanished from everyone's sight, followed by a string of explosions.

Todoroki and Bakugo felt a strong wind current as Steven ran beyond their reach like a pink blur, he was triggering all the mines in his path, yet moving so fast that when the mines exploded, he was already a safe distance away from them!

"Grah!" desperate Todoroki froze the remaining road forward to move faster, even if it meant making a way for those behind him.

"No!" Bakugo, on his part, furiously propelled himself forward with a stronger blast, not only _Deku_ , but Steven, some new kid, had surpassed him as well!?

"And we have our First Winner!" Announced Present Mic "In an outstanding twist, Izuku Midoriya of Class 1-A takes the lead with a surprising strategy!"

"Izuku!" Steven said, panting from behind Midoriya, his skin losing his pink glow and going back to normal, "You okay?"

"Yeah…" he replied, "That was… intense…" The young hybrid merely nodded in response.

"Another unexpected victory! Exchange Student, Steven Universe of Class 1-A, has finished in second place!" Aizawa couldn't help but be surprised once more; he had seen first hand what Steven could do, yet still seeing him pull this power again so close to the finish line. It made him wonder... Just _what_ was this kid's true limit?

"In third place, we have another 1-A Student, Shoto Todoroki, followed super close by Katsuki Bakugo, also from Class 1-A!" Todoroki looked closely at the first and second places, he had seriously underestimated their skill.

"It can't Be!" Bakugo whispered, his hands were shaking, two people he had dismissed as mere extras just defeated him in a competition. Deku even beat him without even using his quirk! "This…! This is…!" he stopped himself from shouting. He merely looked at the two, he would come on top for the next event if it was the last thing he'd do.

"Connie!" Steven yelled as Connie made it to the finish line, her efforts had paid up landing her in 8th place, followed very closely by Kirishima.

"Steven, ah, I'm-I'm so proud of you!" said the girl while catching up her breath. The rest of the competition finally made their way to the finish line.

"Hehe," the young man offered his hand to help her steady herself, "I Remembered something you told me a few days ago."

"Huh?"

"Plus Ultra!" he just said with a small giggle and a cheery grin, "I guess I need to drill that into my head for the rest of the competition."

"Right!" Connie clapped her hands "We didn't make waves on this event, but, let's blow them away on the next one!"

As the final student made it to the finish line, everyone gathered around Midnight's podium.

"The first game for the first years is finally over and what a game it was!" Announced Midnight, as she then began to display the standings for each of the students.

While they were being displayed in order from last to first place. Steven decided to walk up to Izuku, who was currently chatting with Uraraka.

"Hey, Izuku!" he called out, grabbing Deku's attention. He walked over and continued, "Congrats on making 1st place!"

"he-he, Thank you." the young man blushed accepting the compliment, however 'No, I just got Lucky!' internally he just kept beating himself. 'If it wasn't for Todoroki, I wouldn't have moved beyond the robots...' his own critiques were harsh, but he then reinforced himself and thought, 'The real test is still to come…'

"Uh… Deku? You okay?" asked Uraraka.

"Huh? Oh, I'm fine Uraraka," Izuku said. Then he and Steven both noticed something. For one, Todoroki is eyeing them both as if sizing them up. Bakugo on the other hand was scowling at them, pure contempt and aggression in his eyes. This genuinely unnerved Steven as he NEVER liked it when someone gave him that look…

As he grimaced at this, Midnight spoke up to the crowd, "Only the 42 best made it to the next Round, don't worry if you didn't make the cut, we prepared more opportunities for you to shine!" The heroine licked her lips, "Now the REAL fun's about to begin! The chance to fully move yourselves into the limelight..." the screen behind Midnight sprang to life "Here comes our second test, what will it be…? Will your wildest fantasies come to life? The waiting is torture, isn't it?" she moved seductively while pointing to the screen "So… prepare yourselves… for this!"

The screen showed the sign *CAVALRY BATTLE*, Steven could see the confusion in the people around him.

"'Cavalry battle'?" Connie asked.

Asui spoke up next to her, "Weird, that's a team event. I wonder how they'll judge our performance this time?"

"Hey, that means we can participate together!" Steven said, stars forming in his eyes.

"Allow me to explain…" Midnight said as the screen showed a graph of the necessary formation, "The participants can form teams of 2 to 4 people as they see fit. It's essentially the same as a simple playground game, but there IS one difference… We'll be giving all 42 contestants points based on the results from the last event!" The Screen changed once more showing the places every student finished in, "42th place is worth 5 points, 41 is worth 10 points and so on. But the value for 1st place is..."

"Whaaa?" Steven noticed the sheer number of zeroes on Izuku's score.

"That has to be an error right?" Connie scratched her head.

"10 million!" Midnight announced to everyone in the audience. Immediately every eye in the vicinity went to the green haired boy "That's right… This is survival of the fittest, with a chance for those below!"

#

3 nights ago...

The Gyu-Nosi district, an old and dilapidated industrial area, symbol of the bad old days. Having the misfortune of being the epicenter of many terrible battles between villains and those who would become heroes. Now, it stood like a ghost town in the middle of the night, a humongous labyrinth of half destroyed and dilapidated buildings. At least until a small light turned on.

In a small building without a ceiling, hidden deep within the industrial zone, two criminals tried to deal with their latest failure.

"He's Gonna rat us out, I know it!" Pistol paced left and right nervously, you could see some scratches around his head and face due to the nervous tick of using his claw to touch his face, that along with his disheveled appearance was a staggering contrast to his relaxed partner.

"Shut It!" Mogu said as he lit up another cigarette "Why do you think I brought you here and not our usual hide out?"

"But the worm also knows this place!"

"Yeah, and if he tells them, they're still not gonna find a thing, eh?" the short stout man pointed at his drill-like legs "We'll just disappear underground like nothing. Besides, it's been 3 days, if they were sending anyone here, they'd already be here by now."

"Hmmmm," Pistol simply exited the half destroyed building. "Gonna check on the car," he said while kicking away the debris from the entrance.

"Yeah, you do that," said Mogu as he comfortably sat on the floor. "Cowards, big, strong but still a coward *haaaa*" he watched the plume of smoke he exhaled rise towards the sky, "eh, gonna have to lay low for a while," they never expected to run into a hero that night. "Kid _knew_ that if a hero comes is everyone for themselves."

*rustle*

"Huh?" Mogu quickly stood up at the noise, he checked around, "A rat? Eh-." the man questioned before sitting back down.

*CRASH!*

A body impacted the floor just in front of him with a badly beaten Pistol gasping for air. "Heeeee-" the man could hardly make a noise, his face was bloodied, and his right leg was bent at a weird angle "Heeelp-" he crawled towards mogu who in a panic stood up and backed away slowly. "N-n-nooo" the man gasped.

"MOOOOOOGUUUUU," a deep and guttural voice called from behind. Mogu turned around to see a nightmarish creature standing atop the wall. Looked like a person, if you made it out of mismatched parts, its torso and shoulders were wide, almost as wide as 2 people side by side, the creature was slanted to the left, probably to compensate for the weight of the humongous right arm it was carrying, that thing was maybe as a wide as he was, and twice as long as the creature. Its left side, uneven as well, showed a thin arm that divided into two different directions after the elbow, finally he could see a spark on its chest pulsating, beating like a living heart, each time in a different color.

"G-Glow?" Mogu stuttered, he tried to activate his quirk but the giant hand grabbed a hold of him and lifted the small man right in front of the creature's face. He knew that face, even as bloated and twisted, he was sure it was him…

"Moguuuuu" Besides glow worm's voice, Mogu could swear he heard dozens of unintelligible voices whisper into the night, even if the creature hadn't opened its mouth.

"I-I'm so-so-sorry, bu- but you- AAHHH!" Mogu's pathetic stutters were interrupted after the beast tossed him to the ground, he tried to get up and run, but the enormous hand just slapped the tiny man against one of the walls.

"Grrrr" Glow worm walked slowly towards the whimpering man, it was enjoying seeing their former 'buddy' squirm in fear at their pres-

*BOOOM*

"What The!" Mogu saw how hole opened out of Glow worm's chest as Pistol, in a desperate move, tried to kill the beast with his quirk shockwave! Immediately one of the small arms growing out of the beast's left side disappeared, and Mogu felt something falling on his lap.

"GRAAAAH!" Mogu could hear dozens of voices scream into the darkness

"Ta- *gasp* Takeeee tha-" Pistol couldn't finish the sentence, as Glow worm's gigantic right hand slammed like a hammer on top of his body with a sickening crunch.

"GRAAAAHH!" The beast immediately turned around towards the cornered Mogu.

"NO NO, PLEASE DON'T KILL ME" the man pleaded to Glow worm waiting for a killing blow that never came. "G-Glow?" the whispers of the beast had gotten stronger as it was looking at whatever had fallen into his lap. He opened his eyes and saw a chipped green gemstone dimly lit by the beast's inner light.

"Haaaaaa" he misshapen face had his eyes focused on the gemstone fragment, while unintelligible whispers followed. Before Mogu could ask a question the chipped gem started glowing and shaping itself, until there was a living disembodied arm squirming on top of the terrified man.

"AHHH!" Mogu Screamed as Glow worm quickly grabbed the arm and stuffed it into his mouth, in a matter of seconds, the missing arm reappeared, and all damage made to his body mended itself.

"Get me moooore!" the beast demanded, the whispering voices echoed the same desire in a frenzy.

"mo- mo-more what?"

"GEMSSSSSS"


	7. Lets Make Waves!

Izuku was floored…

Almost everyone was looking at him for a split-second…

All because he was given 10 MILLION points…

Suddenly, he heard Bakugo's voice ring in his head from a year ago…

_You'll never be able to hang with the best! You're just a Quirkless_ _**wannabe!** _

'This is all way different from my days at junior high…' Izuku thought, 'But everyone's still gunning for me… It's only through luck that I made it this far…' He looked to where All-Might would be sitting, '... now I get what it means to be at the top…'

Then, Midnight began to explain the rules of the Cavalry Battle, "FIRST YEARS! These are the rules you'll abide by. The game itself will last 15 minutes. Individual point values will be added together to make the total score of points for your team. You will know how many points you're worth using your team's headband. Your goal is to swipe as many of the other team's headbands as you can to raise your own team's score. Stolen headbands are to be worn from the neck up, so the more you take, the harder it will be to manage them all. Oh… and another thing… Even if your headband gets stolen or your team falls down… You can keep playing until time's up!"

Everyone began to chatter amongst themselves at this point. Some looked scared, others confident, and a few with critical looks on their faces. Midnight then proceeded, "This is going to be rough, but you can use your Quirks as much as you like! BUT… there are still rules! Make a team fall on purpose and I'll slap you with a red card and you'll be disqualified!" Then, the screed behind her turned into a timer, "Now… you'll all have 15 minutes to form your teams… I suggest you get your butts moving!"

#

"We need to find the right combination for this" Steven said he saw his classmates all join around in groups. "I wish I had more time knowing them, hehehe," he giggled nervously.

"We are kind of the outsiders in this," Connie Added "And right now, I think you're our biggest selling point."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Steven said as he saw some Students pooling around looking for appropriate partners.

One small group was surrounding Bakugo…

"You should team up with me!"

"No, you definitely want me on your team!"

"I don't wanna beg, but please?"

Bakugo merely looked at the group surrounding him before he suddenly ended up having an expression of slight, yet genuine, _panic_ , "Wait, remind me what your Quirks are again! And your names…"

"You're kidding, we're your classmates!" Mina said, now clearly offended.

"Can you really be that self-centered!?" Angrily asked Sato, a large, burly student.

"He's not having trouble at all finding Teammates, How about we stop waiting for the team to come to us?"

"Huh?"

"Let's split up!" Steven Said, "We'll find a partner and reconvene here!"

"Are you sure Steven?"

"Hey, you said I was our biggest selling point right? Well, let's go make some publicity!" and with that both teenagers departed with a mission.

Meanwhile, Izuku was in deep thought. 'Okay… It's like I thought, most of the others have stuck with others in their class for partners. There's no point in pairing up with someone if you don't know what their Quirk is. I need to find a team of my own… and fast…'

He then looked around him… then was in a panic, 'But everyone's choosing to avoid me because I'm worth so much!'

"Hey Ojiro," he tried approaching the tailed teenager.

"Oh, I-I'm sorry," the young man awkwardly turned away from him leaving young Midoriya flustered.

'I-It makes sense, no one's worried about keeping their own headbands the whole game, it's better strategy to just steal as many points as you can at the end! Besides, unlike Steven, Todoroki, or Kacchan, I didn't use my Quirk at all on the first event so nobody had any confidence in me!'

"Hey, Deku!" Slowly, Izuku turned to face the source of the voice. It was the cheerful tone of Ochako Uraraka, "Let's team up!"

At that point Midoriya could not help but burst into tears of joy, "URARAKA! Are you sure!? Everyone'll be after me and my ten million stupid points! Tell me you're not kidding around!"

"Hey, if we run away the whole time they won't be able to get us, right?"

Izuku looked nervous at this suggestion, "Uh, I think you're either overestimating me or underestimating everyone else here."

"Phooey!" Uraraka stated still in her cheerful expression, "Anyway… it's better to team up with people you like!" Suddenly, Izuku's face changed into one that suggested he was gonna cry again. "Uh," Uraraka went, "Are you okay? You look so gross."

Wiping his face of tears, he said, "No… I just thought my chest was going to explode for a second…" Eventually he calmed down and spoke again, "Actually, I wanted to team up with you too. And you're right; in a team up event like this it's best to just team up with people what you know best."

And with that, the two silently agreed to go ask Iida to join their team.

#

Meanwhile Steven was doing something similar, calling out to another classmate, "Hey, Jiro!"

"Steven, Congratulations on making it second, what's up?"

"I wanted to see if you'd like to join my team, we just need a couple more people to go!"

"Ehm well, do you have any plans?" Steven thought about it, and decided to give a small demonstration making hexagons of pink, solid light, and a gem bubble, letting them freely float in the air. "Oohh"

"I can block any attack that comes our way with these, and also," Jiro observed how Steven's arms stretched to almost double their original length "I can reach for the headbands without much problem!"

"Wow, Count me In! Wait, You mentioned you have another teammate already?"

"Yeah! My friend, Connie, from the general course, she should be getting a member too."

And indeed, Connie ran into a pretty big young man walking away from Bakugo's team, as the blond had already assembled it. No matter what kind of quirk he had, someone that strong could be a great addition to their team.

"Hello!" Sato looked at the young woman in front of him, "Looking for a team?"

"Hey, you're the girl from general studies, right?"

"Yup, my name's Connie Maheswaran, what's yours?" I want to ask you if you'd like to be on our team?"

"Rikido Sato," the young man responded, he could see the girl's intentions from a mile away, he had to admit she was good, otherwise she wouldn't have it within the top 10, but, this time they needed to think about their quirks, that's why he had gone to Bakugo in the first place. "I think I am gonna go with a friend on my team," he preemptively said.

"Oh, that's a shame, I was sure Steven would have loved teaming up with you..." Connie turned around and started looking left and right.

The young man reacted at that "W-wait, you're teaming up with him?!" his mind went straight to the previous event, how he got out of Todoroki's trap, or took down that enormous robot, and even how outsped both Todoroki and Bakugo at the literal last second.

"Umm, maybe I'll ask someone from 1-B?" she spoke out loud.

"WAIT!"

"Huh?"

"I-I think we could arrange something,"

Connie smiled "That's Really good! By the way, what's your quirk?"

"Well, whenever I eat sugar, my strength and muscle mass increases temporarily," Sato said, taking out a few sugar cubes from his pocket.

"Whoa… Really?" Connie said, interested.

"Yeah!, though I prefer to use it when the time is right, it's very tiring," he kept to himself the detail that the stronger he gets, the less intelligent he becomes as well. No need to tell a potential rival your weakness just yet.

"Well, If you're interested, come with me, I'm sure you'll do just right!"

"Yeah!" Sato pumped his fist, happy at this development as he followed the girl back to Steven.

#

On the other side of the field, Izuku had to find one last member for his team. His attempt to recruit Iida had failed, as the young hero apprentice challenged him for the event. Fortunately the eccentric engineer from the support course Mei, had chosen his team to make a huge show of her so called 'Babies,' that left them with just one person left to round the team.

'Looks Like everyone is on a team already,' he thought as his sight moved left and right analyzing the competition, 'That's fine! We can work with that!' His eyes darted to the first 3 behind him, he saw Todoroki's team, one of the more balanced ones around, with him at the helm, Bakugo's team looked strong, and Steven's, well he was still an enigma, given how suddenly he turned things around last event. 'I- I know exactly what power our team is missing!'

"Izuku?" Uraraka noticed her teammate walking away "Where are you going?" however the young man didn't answer as he walked, determined towards somebody.

"Join me!" he said as he touched the student on the shoulder. The young man turned around with no word, his bird-like visage remained stoic at the offering of his classmate. Izuku then proceeded, "I know we haven't worked together before, but I have a plan, A plan that will allow us to stay at the top the whole battle, but we need someone like you, someone who can guard our blind spots letting us keep the first place headband."

"Hmm," Tokoyami Fumikage remained stoic at Izuku's proposal.

"I am not gonna lie, we will be attacked from all fronts, and I'm pretty sure that the strongest teams, like Todoroki or Bakugo's will be the first in line for the challenge," Izuku couldn't hesitate right now. He got to the top, now he had to act like it! "So please, challenge them with us!"

Tokoyami took a look at Izuku, he knew the young man was bright, even if he couldn't make the best use of his quirk, that brightness made it surpass some of the best students, and now that he's everyone's target, he remained firm. "Heh, I accept." That was all it took, Izuku returned the smile in kind as he signaled to the rest of his team for grouping.

#

Steven looked around from his position as rider "Everyone Ready?"

"Ready" Connie raised her baton from the rear left.

"Ready when you are!" Jiro gave a thumbs up from the rear right.

"Hmm!" Sato simply nodded,

"Everyone will be going for Izuku's headband, and I think we have to do that as well, but, If we get close to any other team, I want you to go for their Headbands!" the team all nodded. "Sato, when I say 'Charge!' you think you can help us with your quirk?"

"Eh, I'm gonna need a little help, but, I think so!" he said "Just point me in one direction though, don't try anything too complicated afterwards!" He quickly gave his rider a small sugar packet "and give me this before you yell!"

"Right!" Steven immediately addressed Connie and Jiro, "You guys are in charge of looking for incoming attacks, just say the word and I'll shield that position!"

"Yes!"

"Well, this it guys, let's win this!" Steven said to the loud YES of his team as the clock approached 0, Steven made sure his headband, emblazoned with the number 630, was secured.

The buzzer rang out signaling that time was up to look for teams. Stretching, Midnight said, "Oh goodie, it's time to get this party started!"

Prescient Mic over at the announcer's stand said, "After 15 minutes of choosing teammates and talking strategy, around 12 cavalry teams are all prepared to go head to head! Now come on everyone! Get your hand in the air! It's time for a full on UA battle royale!"

The crowd cheered as the riders each placed their headbands on their heads. "Alright first years!" Mic said, continuing, "I hope you're all happy with your chosen teams! … And now! One final countdown before the game starts!" Suddenly a giant screen appeared, slowly counting back from, "5!"

"4!" Bakugo was looking serious at the other teams, popping his joints and preparing for a battle…

"3!" Todoroki remained calm, being confident that his team would overtake any and all obstacles…

"2!" Izuku's face however had a look of sheer determination. Gone was the stuttering fanboy and in his place was the visage of a hero…

"1!" Steven was also focused as well, immersing himself in 'Serious Steven' mode.

Then…

"BEGIN!"

"Let's go!" Steven and his team began running towards Izuku, and along with them every other team that looked for that 10 million points headband.

"We're running away!" Steven heard Izuku's order loud and clear for the rest of the competition.

"Don't Think so!" Tetsu from 1B yelled as his teammate used his quirk, the floor in front of them turned into an unstable swamp that started sinking the green haired boy's team into the ground, Steven was surprised with how easy was Midoriya getting immobilized only to hear a powerful engine go off! "Wha! He Flew!" Indeed, aided by a jetpack Izuku's team took to the skies and escaped Tetsu Tetsu's trap.

"Well, now's our chance!" Steven signaled to his team, Tetsu immediately felt his headband slid off his head.

"What the-!?" the Steel Quirk-bearing teen looked around in shock upon noticing his headband was gone! His whole team frantically looked around only to see a long arm, retracting back towards the curly haired teem.

"Guess we'll take this!" Steven said with a smile much to the irritation of Tetsu.

"Hey!" forgetting about Izuku, the teenager changed course to pursue Steven and his team "Don't let them get away!" Immediately Juzo prepared his quirk once more, not knowing the other team was expecting it.

"Everyone get ready!" Steven yelled noting how the floor behind them started becoming soft "Jump!" all 3 of his teammates jumped as high as they could to avoid the wave of softened floor.

"Can't Be!" Juzo growled when he saw they not only avoided his quirk, they were standing on a solid pink light hexagon!

"Okay, everyone, let's move forward!" Steven pointed as a chain of interlocking pink hexagons materialized in front of the one they were already standing on, making a way forward. This allowed them to step away from the quicksand-like section of the ground.

"Izuku is landing over there!" Sato pointed out as the green haired teen had just made his landing pretty close to them

"Well, let's go say Hi!" Steven said as they approached Izuku's team.

#

Izuku at the same time was extremely grateful for his team, not only Uraraka and Mei had given them an amazing mobility, but Tokoyami's Dark shadow was one of the best defenses they could ask for. "This is amazing!" Izuku said, "Everyone of us is pretty much in sync!"

"Heh, you're a pretty good team leader yourself, Deku!" Uraraka stated.

"My Babies are doing pretty great too, right?" Mei asked in her typical shameless manner.

"Your Babies are amazing Mei!" Izuku answered grateful.

"Izuku!" Uraraka interrupted calling his attention, and not a moment too soon as he could barely evade a long arm reaching for his headband.

"What!"

"Hey Izuku!" Said Steven while grinning, and preparing for another assault.

"Steven?!"

"We gotta move!" Tokoyami yelled among the Chaos only for them to run into a little snag.

"Wait!" Uraraka tried moving her foot, only for it to remain stuck to the ground

"Now, Let's get Closer!" Steven's team moved a single pace forward, only for Connie to end up with the same problem.

"What the-!? Both girls yelled out as they tried to lift their feet, only to see something sticky and purple holding them to ground.

"Wait," Steven said, "Aren't those...?"

"Those are Mineta's! But where did they come from!?" Izuku completed the thought from his side

"HAHAHAHA! This is too Easy! This is no fight, this is a MASSACRE!" Both teams saw Shoji Mezo running towards them, as a hail of purple sticky balls flew from over his head, which were otherwise covered by his multiple arms! The sticky balls were being thrown from a small opening in the front, leaving Mineta completely covered from all sides!?

"What!?" Izuku said in shock, "Is that even allowed!?"

"Judges say Yes!" Midnight announced for the public.

Steven immediately shielded his team with a barrier, sticky balls impacting the walls and getting stuck there, while watching Izuku both evade them with great agility, as well as evading Tsuyu Asui's tongue who made another attempt at Izuku's headband.

"Wow, Midoriya can move!" Jiro mentioned, Izuku's team made a quick retreat as he activated the jetpack once more leaving a piece of the special boots Uraraka was wearing broken in the ground.

"Ah screw it!" Connie yelled in frustration as she pulled her foot out of her running shoe. "Let's go now befor- huh?" Connie saw a small pink bubble encase her foot, Steven winked then looked at the approaching Team, raising a both Long and tall wall in front of Mineta's team, enough to separate them long from this side of the competition.

"Hey No fair!" Mineta yelled

"Sorry," said Connie with a smirk, "You owe me new shoes by the way."

"We will have to go around this wall ribbit," Tsuyu put her hand on the light construct "No way are we all gonna climb it so easily."

"Hrrm," Shoji just grumbled and immediately started running, this would definitively cost them valuable time.

"Okay, After Midoriya!" Steven pointed as his team prepared to run towards Midoriya's team one more time, however before they could make it far, another team decided to block their path. "Huh?"

"So, you really think you'll catch the 10 million headband?" the boy with dark blue hair stood there defiantly. Connie Immediately recognized him from class, while Steven couldn't help but notice something weird was happening with this boy's team.

#

Izuku Midoriya was in trouble. The competition was halfway done, and they had already lost an important amount of mobility thanks to Mineta, not to mention that both him and Steven got really close to taking his headband, he had to think of a way to help his team as soon as they touched the floor.

"DEKU!"

"K-Kacchan!" Izuku heard the unmistakable explosion as Bakugo flew right towards their position.

"Don't think for a second that you're safe!" Bakugo grinned as he extended his hand, "I GOT YOU NOW!"

"TOKOYAMI!" Izuku yelled almost in a panic as Dark Shadow moved, blocking one of the blonde boy's inches before they reached the team!

"What the hell..." Bakugo said as he plummeted back down, only to be caught by his team in a matter of seconds. The whole public cheered at that amazing display of ability, the competition had just been kicked into high gear as every team tried their best to reach the top, every team but...

'Wha.. What's happening' Steven felt his headbands as they were swiped off of his head. 'I- I can't move!' Steven tried to scream but no voice would come out, 'Co-Connie, Jiro, Sato! Do something!' However, no response would come out of his team mates, as they remained as frozen as he was.

"Thank you" Shinso whispered to the team as he signaled his own to move away.

Steven could see, through a clouded vision, how the rest of the teams moved around him, how the public went wild and the attention had gone towards Izuku in the defense of his headband, while his team was getting lost in the shadows. 'I-Is this it?'

_*"We didn't make waves on this event, but, let's blow them away on the next one!"*_

Connie's words resonated on his mind, 'I can't give up! If we're gonna shine a spotlight for the gems to find, then I just CAN'T let this stop me!' unknown to Steven, the gem in navel started to glow 'If I can't move my body, then I will have to move something else!' Steven could feel time slow down to a crawl.

#

Shinso held the headbands in his hand, this was enough to pass to the next round without a doubt. "I don't need to aim for the top," he said to himself "I just need them to see that I can be a Hero, huh?!" Shinso felt something fly close to his head "What the?!" before he could take a look he felt something take a hold of his hand, "It, It can't be!" his hand had been held in place by an ethereal bubble, a pink bubble at that, "What!? But…! He's supposed to be-!" he couldn't move forward anymore as a wall of light sprouted in front of his team, and slowly pushed them back.

'Give it BACK!' Steven's skin glowed in a bright pink as he commanded his light constructs, he could feel Shinso struggling as he held dearly to the headbands he took from them.

"HOW!" Shinso yelled, yet not receiving any answer from the opposite team, his arms were trembling, fighting the very pull Steven was exerting on but it was too much. "Hehe, so this is how it ends right?" he turned around to see Steven's body emitting an intense pink glow, even through his blank expression, the boy's intention was clear. "Steven, you don't know how lucky you are..." with those parting words, the boy let go of the headbands as the bubble shot out of his hand, taking the headbands with it.

*SMACK* "Ow!" the bubble hit steven in the head, freeing his body from the trance and dropping one of the headbands to the floor "Huh? Hey, I can move again!" he said, opening and closing his hands as if testing their mobility for the first time, he immediately made a dome around his team to protect them. "Guys Guys!" Steven shook the rest of his team to jolt them awake.

"Eh? What, What happened?" Jiro touched her forehead as she tried to make sense of her missing time.

"Steven?" Connie rubbed her eyes as if waking up from a nap.

"Whaa?" Sato was just confused by the missing time.

"We gotta go!" Steven said putting on the headband hanging from his shoulder "Jiro, please help me pick up that head ba-"

"That Headband is out of play!" announced Midnight.

"What!" Steven's whole team responded in unison.

"If a headband falls to the ground during a struggle, nobody will get its points, so better think of another way to go forward!" she said with a bit of sadistic glee. Steven looked at the board, their current score had landed them lower than expected!

"Only the best 16 will get to go to the last event," said Sato.

"Let's go for some of the stragglers, we can make it!" Jiro Added while looking for the closest team, only to find a very determined Steven looking forward to where the biggest battle was being fought

"No."

"Steven, are you sure?"

"We were so close to losing a few seconds ago," everyone in the team lowered their sights, "Jiro, Sato, We need to make a small change!" Steven stood up making a pink platform appear beneath his feet.

"Okay?" Jiro asked, a bit confused.

"Sato, keep Holding the front, Jiro you hold the back, Connie," Steven smiled, "Will you grant me this dance?"

"Dance?!" Both Jiro and Sato exclaimed in confusion, what kind of plan had Steven made?

#

"4 minutes left and the competition just got fiercer!" Present mic addressed the audience. "Not only Todoroki was able to stop most of the remaining competitors but now he faces one on one against Midoriya!"

"Hmm, it seems he's having trouble with the defensive playstyle of Midoriya's team," added Eraserhead, "I gotta hand it to him, he is a good strategist."

"Wait a minute, it seems we have a team about to enter the fray and they are, huh?" Present Mic immediately noticed the Universe team making their way towards the space of Todoroki and Midoriya team duel, he also noticed the fact that they had now two riders that seemed to be, "Dancing?"

"What are you planning Universe?!" Aizawa was as desconcerted as Mic. Steven and Connie danced to an inaudible tune as Sato and Jiro Ran forward.

"This team lost more than half their points, in a very confusing play I might add, and now they seem to be… putting on a show for all of us? This competition has gone Wild!"

Jiro was a bit embarrassed by all the attention drawn by their little performance, "Well, you wanted the attention, I hope you have something better in mind!"

"Don't worry," said Steven while keeping their moves "We gotta time it just right!"

"We're getting close to Todoroki, so if you're doing something, get to it right now!" Steven and Connie smiled, as they closed their eyes, Sato and Jiro would stop just outside of Todoroki's ice cage and get into position, so for now they'd just trust the plan that, as the exchange students said, 'would be a doozy.'

"We're stopping NO-eh?" Before Jiro could continue, she saw both kids be enveloped in a bright light, the silhouettes of both phased into each other and reformed in front of the surprised eyes of the team mate.

"Izuku Incoming!" Mei yelled.

"Todoroki!" Denki also warned his team as they both moved to avoid what looked like flat pink hexagons crashing into the ice wall

"What -?!" Before Izuku could finish his sentence he felt something fly so close to his head, "TOKOYAM-*slip*" he felt his headband slide off his forehead to the collective gasps of everyone, not waiting a second, the shadowy creature launched itself towards the intruder only to crash against another pink light barrier.

Using the pink hexagon as a footstool, the mysterious person bounced back to the equally shocked Sato and Jiro's platform. They were tall, their sports uniform looked a few sizes too small for that body, dark skinned, and spotting a long yet curly hair that moved with the wind. "Told you it would be a doozy!" the figure whispered towards Jiro, whose jaw was now so close to the floor.


	8. The Cavalry Battle's  Aftermath

Izuku could not believe his eyes. The Strange person just swiped the headband and stopped Tokoyami's Dark Shadow.

"Th-that's Steven's Team!" Uraraka exclaimed, "But who's that!"

"It… can't Be!" Izuku looked at the stranger, their hair, their skin, their Quirk, "their features are mixed but there's no doubt… That's Steven and Connie...!"

"FUSED… TOGETHER!?" Present Mic just echoed everybody else's feelings at that moment. "You knew about this?" he whispered towards Aizawa, whose wide eyed expression immediately told Present Mic otherwise.

"They never did this… on the quirk evaluation tests... they..." he thought he was ready for those two, but they were keeping something like _that_ from him, was that Connie's quirk? Or was it another ability from Steven like they kept mentioning all the time? "They're gonna hear from me after this…!"

"Stev… Conn…" Jiro tried to call the statuesque person now on their team, while Sato just remained slack jawed.

"Stevonnie will do for-" Before finishing their introduction, Stevonnie spotted a column of ice approaching them at high speed only to crash against a recently made pink barrier! "Well, guess this is as far as the shock went!" they smiled. "Let's go!"

Composing himself Sato, followed by Jiro started running as fast as their feet could take them.

"Iida!" Todoroki ordered, and the motor-legged teen gave chase.

"Midoriya!" Tokoyami immediately pointed out "We need to get our points back, Now!" Izuku nodded, there was no time to lose!

'We can't outrun Iida, but neither can they,' the young man addressed his team "Uraraka, make us as light as you can and hold tight, lean on the ice wall!" the girl concentrated on her quirk as she applied it to the team, "Tokoyami, get Ready!"

"What's the plan?"

"We're getting our points back!"

On the other hand, Todoroki prepared another assault with his right hand, whatever tactic Steven had used, he couldn't let him win in first place, not when HE was looking. "You won't escape!" In a matter of seconds, Todoroki's team outsped Stevonnie's, blocking their path forward with a new Ice barrier, making Stevonnie's team stop cold on their tracks.

"I didn't think we could outrun Iida *haa* *haa*" said Sato trying to catch his breath, Stevonnie stood determined in front of Todoroki's team.

"Any plans?" Jiro asked

The fusion clenched their hands making their knuckles pop, "There's nowhere to run, guess we'll have to face them Head On!"

"What?!" Jiro saw a couple pink light barriers materializing around them.

#

"And it seems like Team Universe about to get into a close duel with the Ace of Class 1-A!" Present Mic announced to the audience. "And they are not backing out, but can they keep their advantage before time runs out?!" The public went wild.

"You sure it's not the girl- I mean Connie?" the hero Thirteen asked the cowboy, who simply shook his head.

"I supervised their training prior to the festival, to the point of letting me see their quirks, I don't think she would have passed the opportunity to show me this," answered Snipe.

"There is another alternative," the skeletal visage of All-Might stared intensely at the confronted teams "Steven's quirk may be more than we were originally thinking," the rest of the teaching heroes turned their sights towards Toshinori.

"Steven's power does include Shapeshifting, although this kind of use is stretching it a bit..." Ectoplasm added.

"Why wait until this moment to do it though? I would have made an excellent asset on the previous event"...

"I think the answer is obvious" Toshinori pointed towards the stadium screens, every single camera was now centered around Stevonnie and Todoroki's duel. "They want to be noticed." the rest of the heroes nodded while his sight went towards Izuku closing on the the other two teams from behind, 'I know I may have put a lot of pressure on you, Young Midoriya,' Even from that far away, All Might could see his young succesor's determined expression 'but I have never doubted your potential.'

#

Todoroki's sight was centered on Stevonnie, his right side ached and shivered due to the small ice crystals growing on his skin. All the ice was starting to take a toll on his body as a visible layer of frost was starting to appear in several places...

"Okay!" Stevonnie yelled "Get Ready!" a couple hexagons materialized on their teams sides.

"Hope you're sure about this," Jiro clenched her teeth, she didn't think this was such a good idea, but she understood that just hiding to win would not give the public the best impression about them.

"Charge!" The Hexagons shot forward, impacting against Todoroki's ice wall, though this time as far away from the teenager as possible, followed by Stevonnie jumping towards them.

Todoroki immediately recognized the tactic and prepared to immobilize Stevonnie as they landed on their improvised light footstool when, *Crash!* out of nowhere, new light hexagons slammed against his right hand, completely encasing it within them! "No!" Todoroki exclaimed as he saw his ice unable to break through the light barrier.

"Hehe!" Stevonnie's arm stretched making a grab for another or Todoroki's many headbands.

"Kaminari, Yaoyorozu!" In a matter of seconds, a powerful electric blast shot out of the blond's body, while the black haired girl made sure the electricity wouldn't hurt her own team, making Stevonnie retract their arm in pain.

"What was their pla- Urk!" Iida felt himself buckle, as a now enormous Sato held him in place, he could tell his classmate was using his quirk as his corpulence had increased dramatically.

"Hya!" Jiro, now standing on the light platform shot her earphone jacks forward and swiped one of Todoroki's headbands. "Now Stevonnie!" She yelled as the smiling fusion gave a thumbs up and jumped back to the platform with Jiro.

"Retreat!" they ordered, Sato let Iida go and in a swift motion, advanced in the opposite direction.

"We gotta get them!" Iida leaned forward "I was hoping I didn't have to use this" the exhaust pipes on his legs started spewing a blue flame as the motor revved up to an insane degree "Recipro!"

"Wait!" Todoroki's voice stopped Iida from unleashing his secret technique "I… I can't move,'' the young man struggled, yet the interlocked light barriers held arm firmly in place.

"What?!"

"If we move, our team will fall apart!" Yaoyorozu added "They didn't really want any of our headbands..."

"... They were just trying to neutralize us!" Todoroki turned his head to where Stevonnie stood up and distracted them. The barrier they have used had disappeared, while the ones holding him in place were still there "That person must need to concentrate to keep these on," his right side was compromised, and Steven's team only needed to keep this for less than a couple minutes before the battle ended "I'm… " Todoroki's jaw clenched, He needed to break whatever concentration Steven, Connie, whomever were exerting over him. "I guess I'll have to…" flames ignited along his left arm as he pointed close to the opposing team.

"SMASH!" The ice walls around Stevonnie's team shattered when a powerful shockwave and burst of air made its way towards them, the winds were so powerful that even Todoroki felt his left arm pushed back, flames put out by the shear strength of the blow, even the barriers holding him in place vanished in the blink of an eye.

"NOW!" Izuku's team was gliding towards Stevonnie, aided by Uraraka and Tokoyami, plucking one of the headbands from Stevonnie during the confusion.

"Wha?!" Stevonnie grabbed a hold of their remaining headbands by reflex, they would have fallen to the ground had it not been for Jiro and Sato's quick reaction. "I-Izuku?"

"Midoriya..." Todoroki could only gasp in awe after such a demonstration of power.

"What a Quick turn of events!" Present Mic Informed the audience "Having lost all their points a short time ago, Midoriya's Team pulled an excellent last minute maneuver, landing them back into… eh fourth place?"

"Nooo.." Izuku clenched his hand as he saw the headband with the number 630 in his hand, his finger was starting to swell after having shattered its bones with that last movement.

"DEKU!" Making their way through the fallen walls, after having beaten several teams from other classes on their way to the top, Katsuki Bakugo and his Team entered the fray.

"Wait, they don't have the 10 million Headband!" Kirishima pointed.

"WHAT!" Bakugo quickly turned his head to the left of Izuku, giving a quick glance to Todoroki, then to the right, noticing the person with the highest pointed headband immediately, "Who the hell is that?"

"We have no time!" Todoroki recovered from the surprise. "Let's Go get the Headband!" Iida started his leg engines at the same time as Todoroki sent a column of ice towards Stevonnie.

"Don't Care who the HELL you are!" Bakugo jumped followed by a loud explosion "I'm the one who's gonna BE at the top!"

"Take Cover!" Stevonnie materialized a pink dome encasing their whole team.

Izuku could not stay behind as his classmates gave it their all, he prepared his next finger 'I promised All-Might I would tell the world I'm here!' he thought, the energy of One For all started pooling into his finger, as both Bakugo and Todoroki's attack collided with the solid dome in the middle of the battle "SMA-!"

"TIME'S UP" Midnight yelled.

Everybody stopped in their tracks as the loud buzz signaled the end of the competition. Izuku let out an audible gasp as he deactivated his quirk. The pink dome still stood in the middle of the battle, flanked by a pillar of ice crashing against it on one side, and a very annoyed Bakugo swiping the smoke of the explosion on the other side. Izuku couldn't help but notice Todoroki's eyes focusing on him.

"Now we have the results of this extremely harrowing match!" Present Mic's narration filled the air as the teams disbanded and moved towards Midnight's podium to see the results. "On 4th place after a very close call, and an even more amazing comeback, the team led By Midoriya from 1-A!" Izuku tried containing his tears.

"We… we made it to the next event…!" Izuku cried, trying desperately to dry the waterworks coming from his eyes.

"E-everyone, Thank you!" He addressed his team.

"In third place, we have Todoroki's team!" the young man was not happy. Some were even groaning in disappointment. However the young man's sights were squarely on Midoriya.

"In second place, we have Bakugo's team!" that made Bakugo's face twist into an expression of deep rage…

"Uh… Bakugo? You okay," Kirishima stated, only to actually take a step back as he noticed the sheer hate on his friend's face.

"Second place is not that bad, right?" Mina asked

"Yeah, but," Sero stepped back from Kirishima and Bakugo "Try telling that to him…"

"And Finally, in first place, after a competition full of surprises, the Team led by one of our new exchange students makes it to First place!" The crowd cheered as the screens centered on the now 3 person team, Stevonnie stretched their muscles while getting a few looks by Jiro.

"Are you gonna stay like that for the rest of the festival?"

"Hehe, no, I just," Stevonnie looked at their hands, letting out a small sigh, "I just missed this a bit…" With a smile, Stevonnie's body was enveloped in an intense glow, their body separated into the 2 distinctive silhouettes of Steven and Connie as the light died down, much to the surprised looks of everyone there.

"This 16 students will pass to the final event of this competition!" Added Present Mic, "But, we'll see about that after a small break!" in the commentators' booth, Aizawa immediately stood up. "Hey where are you going?"

"I need to have a talk with our new students." the bandaged man answered as the door closed behind him.

Izuku wanted to talk to Steven and Connie once more, who would've known they had such an ace up their sleeves! 'A Quirk…? A Fusion?, can they combine with everyone, or just them?' his mind was just spinning with all the possibilities.

"Midoriya…"

"T-Todoroki!" his thoughts were stopped when his classmate blocked his path.

"Meet me at the outer gate" his gaze remained firm "There is something we need to discuss."

"Okay?" Izuku nodded, Steven and Connie walked among the rest of the students, while he was still pretty curious about their performance, Todoroki's request seemed a bit too sudden...

#

Her cheeks turned red, her heart started beating so fast as the commercial break started, was she getting a Crush?

"Hee-hee-hee..."

An innocent giggle came from the girl in the sweater, she usually didn't care for the 'Hero Sports Festival,' she saw it as just a bunch of stuck up people parading their quirks before joining the city. Before joining the system that kept her in hiding, that forbade her from using her quirk.

"Two people joining, two people becoming one?" A flurry of thoughts filled her mind. What would it mean to become something new? "A boy and a quirkless girl, something new, I wonder... Hehe…"

The girl licked her lips and smiled, showing a couple of sharp fangs decorating her mouth while she played with her hair, "I don't like heroes… But a girl can't choose who she falls in love with, right? hehehehe..."

#

"So, why did you keep this a secret from us?" Aizawa asked the two exchange students. The young couple just sat at the small table trying to explain their situation. Making use of the waiting room for extra privacy.

"It's not like we deliberately didn't tell you," Connie started, "It's just been so long since we did this and-"

"And I don't actually consider Stevonnie a Pow- I mean, Quirk."

"Hmm? And pray tell, what is 'Stevonnie'?"

"A fusion, is more than just two persons becoming a stronger person," Steven explained "Is a reflection of the bond those people share, can be family, can friendship, can even just be the determination towards the same goal"

"Stevonnie was special" Connie could see Aizawa raised his eyebrows "It was the first time Steven fused with anyone in his life."

The teacher sighed "I remember the deal was that you told us everything that you could do..."

"We did," Steven finally answered. Aizawa couldn't help but keep his suspicions towards the teenage couple.

"It seems you have a lot of reverence for this… Fusion. I'm not gonna punish you or anything, but, I want you two to get a more extensive evaluation in the future, understood?" The teacher informed "Now, go to the cafeteria you two, the next event is gonna be taxing, and you will have to face that on your own."

"Yes Sir!" both responded in unison leaving the teacher behind, who just sat in one of the free chairs, he now was gonna have to keep a closer eye on the universe boy, to intervene in case it was necessary…

#

After a short visit to the infirmary, a reprimand by Recovery Girl, and a very illuminating discussion with Todoroki, Izuku was running late for the short recess they had been given.

_*"Irregardless of the results of this last competition, you surpassed me, and I think you even surpassed Steven."*_

The words of Todoroki still resonated in his head, he could understand the young man's drive, and his dislike towards his own fathers way of raising him, but still. "To reject a part of yourself…?" he looked at his bandaged finger, he had to help him, somehow.

"I hope there's still a little food left!"

"Wait, Steven?!" Izuku's deep thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of both Steven and Connie.

"Oh, hi Izuku, you're also late?!" Steven answered, and Connie complemented with a small wave.

"I'll see if we can get a table," Connie excused herself and advanced.

"Oh, I was, hmmm," Steven's eyes widened after seeing the bandaged finger on Izuku "Oh, this? I had to go to the infirmary, I kinda hurt myself a bit in the cavalry battle."

"Oh. Well, let's go get some food then."

Connie on her part, kept looking for a table to have a quick lunch as time was starting to run low for the recess.

"Nice job back there." Connie froze at that voice, slowly turning her head, she noticed the dark haired young man sitting in an almost empty table, only a glass of water and a couple of plates remained on top of Shinso's tray. She didn't dare utter a word in front of him after their whole ordeal minutes ago. "Don't worry yourself. My Quirk won't actually activate if I don't want it to." he said to reassure Connie.

"I… see…" understandably, she was still cautious.

"I severely underestimated you both," Shinso stated, grabbing a glass of water from his tray, "but then again, I think I underestimated every other student on the Hero Course."

"You, you did a great job," Connie sat on one of the chairs across the young man, "I didn't know what happened, if Steven hadn't woken up..."

"Hehe, after seeing the show your team put back there, I realized I was missing something. You could have just taken the easy route after taking that headband and just hid in one of those domes, but you kept taking the risk further and pushed yourself," Shinso lowered his face "I don't think I had another plan after my quirk was overcome."

"I think you could be an amazing hero,"

"Hmm?"

"Your abilities could resolve and deescalate any conflicts without anyone getting hurt!" Connie grabbed Shinso's hand jolting the young man out of his gloomy mood, "But I think, you should push yourself harder, just like everyone was in there."

Shinso felt Connie's hand, his mind went back to a few days prior when he saw her hold a sword, the roughness and the calluses, this girl had been fighting for a while, probably even more than he ever tried…

"I understand," Shinso stood up and picked up his tray. "You're the only one from our class who made it to the final event, I am curious to see what you will do next…" and with a smile, he left the table.

Universe and Midoriya carried the food trays towards Connie's table, Steven was getting a few looks from the other classes, couldn't help but feel a little awkward.

"You really surprised them in the Cavalry Battle, huh?"

"I guess so, but your quirk nearly devastated our team, if you hadn't missed, we wouldn't have made it."

"You gotta admit that I haven't seen a quirk that allows people to fuse, how would that even work?"

"Hey guys! Over Here!" Connie waved her hands, inviting them to sit over. After a quick lunch, Izuku took out his notebook and decided on getting a few notes about Stevonnie.

"You discovered that by accident!?" Izuku added the notes on the entry marked as 'Stevonnie', in the page there was already a few notes *Stronger, faster and more agile that Steven and Connie Individually,*

"Well My family has always had that ability, but-but it was the first time someone ever fused outside my family," Steven said in explanation.

"Yeah," Connie added, "It was pretty weird for me too. One second you are goofing around in the beach and the next, well, you see what happened"

"I was never good at using my powers when I was young, I even feared I was never gonna be able to use them at all!"

"Wait-Really?!" Izuku almost dropped the pencil.

"When you're born in a family like mine, you grow up seeing all the awesome things your family does, all the good they do, and the adventures they go around to, and you start fearing that you'll never be able to follow in their footsteps." Steven started remembering how he began his journey long ago. "I mean, I don't think I ever manifested my shield until I was 12?"

"Wait, 12?"

"Um yeah?" Steven said, confused at Izuku's tone.

"Not four years old?"

This rung alarm bells in Connie's head. She then said hastily, "Y-Yeah! Steven was QUITE a late bloomer! I mean, he had the genetics for a Quirk, sure, but we were worried that something was wrong when he didn't show any signs at age four, just like I didn't!" She then put on a forced laugh, hinting at Steven that he almost blew their cover.

Noticing Connie's panicked reaction, Steven tried coming up with the quickest justification he could "Y-Yeah! I mean we were sure I was born with a Quirk, be-because of... because I inherited my mother's Gem!" the boy lifted his shirt showing the pink gem where his navel should be.

"Oh yea, I see" Izuku nodded, Steven and Connie's reaction was something he didn't expect, however, he could see they weren't too comfortable with the topic. "I think we can finish for now. I have enough new data." He took his tray back and decided to give his classmate a little space.

This made Steven and Connie breathe a sigh of relief as soon as Izuku left. "Sorry about that, I got carried away." Steven apologized.

"Don't worry, I think is believable enough."

"I wish we hadn't promised to keep quiet about our origins, Izuku seems like a good person, he would understand, maybe."

"I know, hopefully, our plan here works, I'm pretty sure that with the gems on our side, coming clean to everyone will be easier." Connie picked up her tray and started walking away. On her way she bumped with a very agitated Jiro preparing with the rest of the 1A girls for the next event.

Steven took a deep breath and stood up, "Well, time to keep going!"

#

The crowd in the stadium cheered as the students returned.

"Get those thumb fingers in the air, 'cause it's almost time for the last round!" Present Mic stated as he announced to the audience! "But there's also some good news for anyone who didn't make it to the finals! Since this Sports Festival is an actual FESTIVAL, we've arranged for a bunch of fun little side games for them to compete in! We even brought in some cheerleaders from overseas to get your blood pumping!" However, he froze mid sentence as he and Aizawa were greeted with a… unique sight…

"What are they doing…?" Aizawa said to himself upon what he was seeing…

All his female students, and even the exchange girl were dressed in what appeared to be somewhat revealing cheerleading outfits. Their faces however couldn't do more than display the utter shame of their situation.

Present Mic actually rolled with this, announcing, "Looks like Class 1-A is going full on FANSERVICE!"

Two students in particular were exchanging thumbs ups at this display; Denki Kaminari and, of course, Minorou Mineta…

"WHAT!?" shouted a VERY irate Yayourozou, "You TRICKED us!? YOU'RE GONNA REGRET THIS!"

Connie tried to cover her midriff with her pompons, as her face became redder by the second 'I knew this sounded fishy...'

*" _Jiro! Uh, is something wrong?" Connie asked after bumping on a blushing Kyoka Jiro._

" _Oh, nothing, nothing," Jiro clenched what it seemed to some new clothes in her hands, "I'm just preparing for the next event!" Connie could see every girl around Yaoyorozu, picking up similar getups to what Jiro held in her hands._

" _I didn't remember them mentioning we needed new clothes for the next event..."_

" _Me neither, but, well, Mineta and Kaminari said that these uniforms are pretty much mandatory for each of the Hero Course and that the instructions were directly from our teacher Mr. Aizawa."_

" _Aizawa?" Connie remembered the stern talking from a few minutes ago, and a small plan started manifesting. "Can I participate?"_

" _Huh?"_

" _I made it to the final round, I think I can help with whatever this next event is," She said with a simple, cheerful tone, 'Besides, working along with his students may get him to understand Steven and I are taking this competition seriously!' she thought to herself._

" _O-Okay, let's talk with Yaoyorozu."_ *

Connie's forehead veins were almost visible "I'm gonna crush that midget!" the girl said through clenched teeth.

Groaning, Yaoyorozu dropped to the ground, "Why is it that I always fall for that stupid little pervert's schemes…"

"Wait," Connie said in anger, "This is an actual THING for him?!"

"Yeah," Yaoyorozu suddenly looked MORE ashamed, "I even used my Quirk to make these outfits…!"

Connie was now visibly irate, thinking, _Okay, now I'm DEFINITELY gonna crush him!_

Seemingly to mirror Connie's thoughts, Jiro threw her pom-poms to the ground in disgust, "Ugh! This SUCKS!"

"Well…" the invisible Tohru suddenly piped up… "We only have a little time before the side contests start and we're already in these uniforms so…" She then began to wave her body around in an enthusiastic manner, "Why not just roll with it~!?"

"ARE YOU CRAZY!?" Jiro yelled at her.

Connie looked around at the rest of the students, some of them snickering and smiling, others indifferent, and then, "St-Steven?" the young man was blushing at her new attire, unable to take his eyes off of her.

"Uuuh, ehem, You- You look nice Connie!" Steven muttered, causing the girl to blush in return, a reaction that was not lost on the rest of the girls.

"Uh… Th-Thanks…" Connie stuttered, while also blushing greatly.

The awkward scene was interrupted by the blaring of Present Mic's Voice "Buuut, Before the side games commence, we are gonna decide the pairings for the final event!" The screens all over the stadium displayed a Tournament Bracket with 16 positions. "That's right, the one on one Tournament!" the crowd cheered.

"A Tournament?" Steven thought out loud

"Yeah, the UA Sports Festival's final event is always a tournament," Izuku responded.

"Only the best will make it to the top!" Midnight arrived into her podium carrying a box "the finalists from the last event, come pick your number!" One by one each of the four teams approached the podium and picked a random ball from the box. As soon as that happened their name appeared on the tournament bracket.

"Here are the combatants for the final round!"

_*Connie Maheswaran vs Mina Ashido*_

"Guess we're gonna be first eh?" The pink girl smiled towards Connie, who could only laugh a bit at her situation.

"Guess we are" Connie sighed, the battle ahead was not gonna be easy.

_*Katsuki Bakugo vs Rikido Sato*_

"'Sato'? Who's that?" Bakugo asked in a bored tone, ignoring the rage from his opponent behind him.

_*Kaminari Denki vs Ejiro Kirishima*_

_*Mei Hatsume vs Tenya Iida*_

"Hello, Are you Iida by any chance?" Mei looked at her opponent with a mischievous smile on her face.

_*Steven Universe vs Ochako Uraraka*_

"I.. I'm fighting Steven?!" the girl couldn't help but feel nervous, she didn't know much about the young man, and turning her mind back to the competition before, didn't make her feel better, at all.

"Let's both give it our all?" Steven said, trying, and failing, to calm her, "O...kay…"

_*Momo Yaoyorozu vs Fumikage Tokoyami*_

_*Kyoka Jiro vs Izuku Midoriya*_

_*Sero Hanta vs Shouto Todoroki*_

Izuku looked at the pairings 'If I win, I will have to face Todoroki for sure.' Along the opposite end of the crowd, the son of Endeavor kept a close look on Midoriya. The hardest part of this Sports Festival was about to begin!


	9. Fight Connie!

_The lower floor of the mysterious gem facility was illuminated by a group of faint and ethereal crystal lamps. Even though seeing gem technology and structures had become a common occurrence in her life, Connie couldn't help but feel like the explorers from old, walking into uncharted lands for the first time._

" _Pearl look!" Connie pointed to a few tall crystalline cylinders filled with a clear liquid embedded vertically along the wall._

" _Hmmm," the slender gem looked closer, "This looks, familiar..." Pearl brought her fingers close to the leftmost container, this one had cracks running all along the structure, though no leaks whatsoever._

" _Seen this before?"_

" _I need to take a closer look," Pearl jumped in a single impulse, stabbing her spear in the wall to use as a support and popped the upper container's cap. "Now let's see what this is," with utmost care, she scratched a bit of the dried residue with her fingernails and brought it to her face "It… can't be!" The residue started sparkling before her eyes before disappearing into thin air._

" _Pearl!?" Connie ran towards the gem as she climbed down the wall_

" _Why, why were they using that?"_

" _Pearl, what is it? What were they using?"_

" _This is Diamond essence," she pointed to the canisters, "Pure, undiluted Diamond essence, and not any Diamond either."_

" _You mean?"_

" _Pink…"_

_On the upper floor of the mysterious facility, Peridot kept fiddling with the control panel, Steven could only see line after line of gem glyph data moving too fast for him to read._

" _Peridot, what is this, what did you find?" Steven asked as the frantic small alien kept looking at the screens._

" _This facility, whatever it is, is the cause for the "Warp Hiccup" of a few days ago, but that's not all"_

_"What do you… Oh no!" Garnet anticipated the answer_

_"This same event has happened before! Several times!" Peridot said the exact same thing Garnet predicted._

_Steven gasped. The "Warp Hiccup" as Amethyst had named the event, was the complete shutdown of the warp network of planet Earth for a few minutes. Any gems in the process of using the warp pads would be ejected into the cold dark warp subspace. It took the Crystal gems hours rescuing the trapped dozens of gems after the last occurrence! "How come we didn't notice!? The warp network has been on Earth for thousands of years!"_

" _There were only 5 of us for most of that time," Garnet interjected._

" _This place didn't turn on for thousands of years either," Peridot continued the explanation. "This terminal has one record of this going off once during the rebellion, and then, nothing, until about 200 years ago!" As Peridot pointed her finger to the screen Steven noticed something on the side of the terminal._

" _Ehh, Peridot, Look!" Steven pulled out a loose panel on the side of the terminal making a small device fall to the floor. "What's this?" Steven saw the object, a small black box, filled with wires and leds, making contact and even bypassing some of the alien connections._

" _That, that thing looks!" Peridot raised her eyebrows at the weird black box._

" _Human Made!" Garnet completed the thought_

_Alarms started blaring off, every possible exit of the facility got sealed in front of the shocked eyes of the group._

_#_

Steven entered the waiting room. Connie, now back in her regular sports uniform, was getting ready for the event.

"Nervous?"

"Um, no! O-of course not Steven!" Connie said, stammering, "Why would I be nervous, hahaha!"

"If… If you're not…"

"I'm not gonna quit Steven," Connie answered, her expression became firm, erasing all traces of her nervousness. "I do have a bit of stage fright, but I'm not afraid of the event."

"I have," Steven said with a bleak sense of honesty, "We have seen that they're capable of doing. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a bit worried."

"And we were just as worried as when we went against Jasper, or the Diamonds, we knew things could get ugly, and yet we powered through!"

Steven looked at Connie's determination. "I guess all this peace got to me again..." with a smile the young man approached his best friend, "I could tell you about your opponent if you need."

"Thanks Steven, but I think I will try to get this one on my own!" Connie clenched the handle of her baton.

"I'll be cheering for you!"

"Same!"

#

After the recreational games finished, the Sports festival stadium lit up with renewed fanfare. Now there was a concrete ring decorating the middle and lit by 4 umongous torches on each corner.

"Aaaaand we're BACK for our final event!" Present Mic announced to the public, "The 16 best students will face each other in one on one duels in an effort to reach the top! Thanks to Recovery Girl, you can go all out on this battle, so give it your all!" the crowd roared with excitement. "If your opponent can't move, is out of the ring, or simply gives up, you'll go to the next round, However, do not use any lethal techniques, remember Heroes use their fists to stop and capture the villains, never to kill!"

The hero Cementoss sat close to the ring in a self made concrete seat while waving to the audience, "I will stop the fight if I think there's any danger."

"And In our first combat," The screen displaced the names and pictures of the students to face each other. "On this corner, from class 1-A, having faced real villains recently, and giving an astounding performance in the event so far, Ashido Mina!" Mina waved while approaching the ring, showing everybody her cheery self "And on the other corner, coming from the General Education course, one of our newest exchange students, having displayed amazing skill in the first event, and one of the only student from a different class to make it this far, Connie Maheswaran!" Connie walked slowly towards the ring looking at the pink girl on the other Side.

"Come on Mina!" Izuku saw from his bench how almost all of his class cheered for the pink girl, however, Steven could not stop cheering for Connie himself.

"Go Connie!" Steven's screams were almost drowned by the competition until a certain someone started cheering for the exchange student as well.

"Come on Connie, Come on!" behind a small megaphone, Mei Hatsume yelled in favor of Connie, not stopping even after getting a few weird looks from her classmates all around her.

"Oh, I guess I'm not the only student cheering for Conn-"

"Show everyone here what my baby can do!" Mei immediately added to her constant cheering.

"Well, I guess she still cheers for Connie, in her own way..." Steven scratched his cheek with an awkward smile.

"Ready?!" Midnight, working as the referee, raised her hand as both girls got in position, "BEGIN!"

"And Connie goes straight to the offensive!" Present Mic commented as indeed Connie immediately swung her baton as Mina can only dodge the swift attack.

"She seems to be going for a quick ring out, the baton does give her a slight advantage over Ashido's range," Aizawa said to present Mic, "many other students would have been hit by now, but she did turned out to be one of the most agile in my class, besides, trying to zone her might not end well for her opponent."

"That's quite an attack." Mina smiled, trying to keep the rhythm of Connie's barrage was not easy, but she had seen enough so far, "But now is my turn!" Mina waved her hand in front of Connie throwing a glob of acid slime in her direction.

"Woah!" Even though the attack was telegraphed, Connie's instincts kicked in and she jumped back to avoid the attack. The floor sizzled as the slime started dissolving the concrete, "Well, I need a change of plans," Connie said to herself, not taking her eyes away from her opponent, the girl however prepared a second volley.

"And the Tables have turned! With her acid, Miss Ashido is starting to regain the lost space at the beginning of the gduel, can Maheswaran overcome this new problem?" Present Mic narrated. Connie had started retreating, everytime she tried pushing forward, Mina simply countered by a spread of acid centimeters before her, followed by a strong kick or punch to make her back down.

"HYAAH!" Connie swung her baton only to quickly be evaded by the pink girl with a smile.

"You're good!" Mina said, waving her hand towards Connie, making the girl back away further.

'No acid?' she flinched by the sudden movement, 'Damn, I got too concentrated in avoiding her acid that-' another swing by Connie was met by a quick dodge, just enough to miss the hit without giving her any space forward.

"I-I'm not giving up here!" A new glob of acid shot out of Mina's hand, Connie retracted her arm as she saw the liquid miss her, melting the concrete on her right.

"No..." her grip tightened around her weapon. 'She wants to disarm me!' a quick turn backwards made her notice how close she was to the edge. 'But she didn't- Oh!' the sudden realization hit her head.

"Connie and Mina seem to be pretty even physically," Izuku said as he wrote on his notebook.

"Izuku?"

"Steven? Oh, sorry, I was just thinking out loud."

"Nevermind… What do you think about the fight?" Steven asked, Izuku could see his tension, however he decided to give him an honest answer.

"I don- I don't know..." the young man answered "I am pretty sure that is not hopeless, but she's gonna have to surpass Mina's acid"

"COME ON!" the yell of the contiguous set of seats called both their attention "I gave you the manual, you can't lose just like that?!" Hatsume was yelling her heart out as she saw Connie backing away closer to the corner.

"Mei?" both asked.

"Ahhh! If you don't do anything more than use it like a stick, what kind of message are you sending to the support companies?! I- I heard even Prometheus was here!" the engineer practically ignored both boys, however Steven smiled after hearing that.

"Steven?"

"I think… I think I might have worried myself more than I had to," Izuku saw his smile, and turned his head back to the fight.

Connie was in a tight spot, Mina had done her best to keep the exchange student with as little space to move, however Connie had also been able to keep her at bay with her baton.

"I'm sorry," Connie said to Mina.

"Why?" the girl kept her eyes locked into Connie. The girl had caught up to her plans to disarm her, and she was good enough to move her weapon away from her acid. She recognized that determination, this next move would be her last.

"I- I think" her breath started to calm "I think, I think it is time to finish this!" the girl swung her baton, making Mina back away slightly, while preparing a couple globs of acid for her final assaul-*click*

"Huh?" the small click was followed by a powerful blow to her stomach, strong enough to take the wind out of her "Wha-!" Connie's baton had extended! Doubled its length with such force that it almost lifted her off the ground, before she could do anything she felt Connie's hands pulling on her right arm.

"Hyaaa!" Connie pulled the pink girl over her head and threw her out of the platform.

"Ashido is out of the ring!" Midnight yelled. The screens all over read *WINNER* displaying her face for the world to see.

"And our first winner is Connie Maheswaran!" Present Mic announced as the crowd went wild.

"Ouch…" Mina touched her stomach as she opened her eyes to find Connie extending her hand to help her "Y-You knew?"

"I noticed you were aiming to disarm me, and well, you also weren't directly pointing your acid at me." The pink girl got back on her feet with Connie's help.

"Yeah…. ouch!" she winced a bit, "I don't normally use it against people directly, I need more control."

"You are good, I didn't think I'd have to use the extended mode to win!" Both girls walked out of the stadium as the platform prepared for the next combat. On his seat, Steven looked at the platform with determination. His turn would come soon enough.

#

Connie made it to her class seat a little into the second fight. Getting a few cheers from her classmates as well as Steven from the contiguous area.

"You did so great Connie!"

"Thank you Steven!" the moment was interrupted by a loud explosion. The fight below, and the person she would have to challenge on the next round were facing each other.

"RRRAGH!" Sato looked imposing with his Quirk in full effect, swinging his fists with such force that she could almost feel them.

*BOOM!* Bakugo's blast made the huge teenager stager momentarily, only to restart his mad assault with a primal roar "Hehehe, those are some really strong punches," the blond smiled.

"Yeah?" The teenager momentarily stopped to see Bakugo's smile, none of his hits had connected..

"But they're telegraphed, clumsy, and altogether useless!" The mocking tone on Bakugo did nothing but enrage his opponent, who launched himself into another chaotic barrage.

"SHUT!" Sato slammed both fists forward making the ring tremble, but missing Bakugo by a lot, "UP!" he wound up another powerful punch aimed directly to Bakugo's new location and

released it with all his might, and it only hit air!

"Ish" Steven couldn't help but cringe as Sato trashed uselessly against Katsuki, he really wanted to see his old teammate win, even if that would mean he'd face Connie in the next round. But that disparity of skill, that hopelessness… _*"Has it sinked in yet?"*_ Steven remembered Jasper's imposing figure against Amethyst years ago…

"See? Useless!" By the time Sato released that powerful punch, Bakugo was already beside him, both arms outstretched and pointed towards him. *BOOM!* an even bigger blast pushed Sato away, dropping him outside the ring.

"Sato is out of the ring!, the Winner is Katsuki Bakugo!" Midnight announced .

Connie tightened her grip after witnessing Bakugo's display of skill and strength. Mina had been a good opponent, but Bakugo no doubt blew her out of the water. A small chill went through her spine, "Not gonna run..." she whispered to herself, if this was gonna be her last combat in this festival, she would make it count!

#

"AAAGH!" Eijiro Kirishima staggered as sparks ran through his body.

"And Denki takes the lead with another great hit!" Present Mic narration intervened. "his rock hard skin protected him against the initial assault, but as the fight gets longer he's starting to falter!"

Izuku, avid note taker, paid attention at the current combat "Kirishima's quirk is based on his stamina?" he jotted on his notebook, trying to think what kind of strategies would he put up were he faced against either of them. Taking a quick look around, he caught a small glimpse of someone leaving their seat. "Uraraka?"

Quickly pursuing his friend, Midoriya followed her to one of the stadium's many corridors.

"Midoriya!"

"A-are you okay?"

"Yes," she answered quickly, "I was just trying to think..." the girl lowered her voice. Izuku approached her as the young woman "I, I guess I'm a bit nervous about my fight..."

"Oh…" that was right, she was fighting Steven, the mysterious young man who proved to be unpredictable given the nature of his quirk, "I think I can help you, I don't know everything about his Quirk but…"

Uraraka shook her head, "Thank you Midoriya, I think I need to do this on my own." the girl averted her gaze from Izuku. "I think," her mind went back to Iida on the previous event "I think I agree with Iida, I need to do this on my own," Izuku could see the smile slowly coming back into Ochako's face "I said I'm gonna do my best, and I mean It!"

Izuku smiled, he could feel Uraraka's determination, and respected her decision, he knew however that her fight was not gonna be easy…

Back in the ring, Present Mic Cheered as the confrontation reached its climax "WOOOOH! The battle has taken a turn once more!" Kirishima protected himself from another one of Denki's discharges by simply hardening his body for a quick moment, meeting his assailant with a smile.

"Hehehe!" Kirishima walked forward as his opponent took a step back. "I-I knew, I had to pace- Myself..." he said panting. The brief advantage Kaminari gained had been slowly chipped away by the red head. While Denki's attack had been vicious, he discovered that just shielding for a couple seconds was enough to neutralize his attack altogether.

"Ookay," a bit insecure, Denki made a few arcs of electricity run through his palms, "Then let's try one last time!" The young man clashed with Kirishima and yelled, "INDISCRIMINATE SHOCK 1.3 MILLION VOLTS!"

Kirishima hardened his whole body as the electricity lit up the ring, even in his hardened state, he could feel the current coursing through his skin, not daring to move a muscle, Eijiro needed to concentrate! 'PLUS ULTRA!' were the only words moving in his mind while enduring the assault, just a little more…

"Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaa-!" Kaminari's powerful attack stopped, as his brain short circuited due to the enormous voltage he produced. Eijiro could feel smoke rising from his body as it slowly dropped his hardened state. Kaminari then began to babble random noises while doing some thumbs up like a huge idiot.

"I.. Win…" Kirishima said and with a small push, he made Kaminari drop to the floor with no resistance.

"Kaminari, can you continue?" Midnight asked the teenager, still giving a thumbs up, but unaware of everything going around him. "The opponent cannot continue! The winner of this combat is Eijiro Kirishima!" she raised her hand signaling the end of the combat, under the cheers of everyone around.

#

The next combat was a bit more unorthodox, especially for the fact that Iida was used by Mei as a walking advertisement of every single support item she developed, finishing with the young technician simply giving up after displaying every single gadget at her disposal.

"And this concludes my presentation," Announced Mei through her megaphone, to every support company in the audience and those watching, "if any of my inventions caught your interest, please don't hesitate to contact me!" And with a smile, Mei left the ring, along with a really angry Iida. "Sorry IIda, but I gotta find someway to be a famous Support Mechanic one way or another," she added very quietly to herself.

Steven and Connie were actually waiting for Mei close to the ring entrance. Steven's first combat was gonna happen right after Mei's, and Connie wanted to congratulate the technician, not expecting the results of the combat though.

"Well, that was... something…" Steven scratched his head as the pink haired girl made their way to the exit.

"Yeah," Connie could only nod in agreement, "I suppose an engineer would like their creations to be known, besides them."

"Connie!" Mei ran to the exit after recognizing her in the doorway "I'm so happy that you won with my Baby!"

"Um, thank-"

"Of course, I knew you were smart! I bet even Prometheus got a good look at it in your fight!"

"Ehm? Prometheus?" Steven asked, remembering Mei had mentioned earlier.

"You don't know about Prometheus!?" Mei suddenly had the look of a crazed fangirl, "They're ONLY one of the _biggest_ support companies around! Ohh, I can only dream what I could do if I could get access to their resources!" the girl's eyes glimmered at the prospect of working with them. "The amount of Babies I could create…!"

"Hehehe," an awkward laugh escaped Steven and Connie's mouth.

"I mean, you're in the hero course, right, Steven?"

"Y-Yeah?"

"You should look into them, they are known for sponsoring promising heroes..." The girl smiled, scratched her chin looking at the exchange student couple "In fact, I think you two just gave me an idea, SEE YOU!" and just like that, the girl ran inside like there was no tomorrow.

"Hey, Mei, where are you going!?" Connie asked the young engineer.

"To my workbench of course!" Mei yelled from the distance "I need to work on this A.S.A.P.!"

"Well, that's Mei." said Connie.

"She's … quirky?" Steven smiled back towards Connie, then turned his sight back into the arena. "I think it's my turn now."

Connie turned serious "I will be here, cheering for you" Connie put her hand on Steven's shoulder "Give it your all! Let's make people talk about this!" Steven nodded as he slowly left the doorway towards the Arena.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I started this story on FFN a while ago and decided to post it here as well, hope you enjoy it :)


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